FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Psalm of the Phoenix

Written on commission by Socks (http://www.furaffinity.net/user/socks/) © 2012 Socks Furrotica

(ch 1)

Tom's throat rasped with each cough as he held the paper towel to his mouth. He pulled it away slowly, and showed it to his brother. "It's only going to get worse."

"I know." Mark said softly. "If you take the meds they give you it won't hurt as much."

"I need my mental facilties." Tom said, laying back in the bed. "I don't need to be drugged out of my mind. I want to read the papers thoroughly."

"You're doing it?" Mark turned away and clenched his teeth. "I thought we discussed that."

"You lectured. I listened." Tom said. "Now it's my turn. I told them I'm in, what do I have to lose? My soul?"

"Don't.... please don't..." Mark shook his head. "I don't want to hear you say these things. You know why I worry for you."

"And I still want to know what part of my body you can find my soul in." Tom weakly clenched his fist. "For that matter if your god loves me so much then why is he going to send me to hell unless I kiss his ass?"

"Tom, please, not now." Mark clenched the side of Tom's bed, trying to keep his composure. "Look, I... I'm through fighting on this. You've made your decision because you don't wan't..."

"to die, yes." Tom said with some defiance. "I have things I want to do yet, things I want to see. And since they can't grow me a new body, this is the next best thing. It's a calculated risk. If I lose, the money wouldn't go anywhere special anyway. If I'm right, then I'll be alive."

"You'll be a computer program." Mark said sadly. "A cold, soulless machine."

"I'm not part that already? Unplug that box over there, let's see how long I live." Tom craned his head back with a long sigh. "Pray for me all you want, pray there's a medical miracle found tomorrow that will cure me, pray for your God or someone else's God to cure me, it's a waste of your time. My choices are certain death or possible life, and I choose to live."

Mark stood up slowly. "It may be a waste of time, but I'm still going to pray for your soul."

"You do that." Tom said, sinking into the pillow. "I'm kinda tired, tomorrow is a big day. Will you be here?"

"I'll be in the chapel." Mark said softly. "I... I can't watch, I'm sorry."

"I know." Tom said. "I just want to know you'll be here. Someone has to tell... ya know."

"I know." Mark leaned down and hugged Tom with all he felt it was safe to. "They don't approve."

"Did they ever?" Tom smirked. "But thank you, for sticking it out."

"Blood is thicker than pride." Mark said softly. "God won't hold this against me, compassion is a virtue."

Hours later Sandy opened the door to the hospital chapel saw a man kneeling in the middle of the pews, head down. She didn't hear him talking. "Are you Mark?"

Mark leaned back a little bit. "Yes."

She walked into the room and stood next to the pew he was in. "My name is Sandy, your brother told us you would probably be here." Mark only nodded. "I'm a technician for Digital Life Associates. I'll be helping with your brother's procedure."

Mark tensed up slightly, but didn't look up. "What will happen?"

"His consciousness will be encoded, and saved on our portable system. Once there he will be in a state of sleep until such a time that we can construct some kind of artificial system for him to place his consciousness into." Sandy said with practiced ease. "We hope to have working robotics in a very near future that we can..."

"No. Not that." Mark said. "What will happen to my brother, the man laying in the bed right now."

"Oh." Sandy said. "The procedure will terminate all life functions as it works deep within core systems of the brain and..."

"So he'll die." Mark said sharply.

"His biological functions will end, yes." Sandy said. "But he won't be dead. His mind will continue to function in a digital form. As soon as we have developed a physical form that can work autonomously to a main computer his consciousness will be placed within it."

Mark looked up to her for the first time, and she could see the tears rolling down his cheek. "Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." He wiped his cheeks off with the sleeve of his t-shirt. "I forgive you, I forgive your staff and I forgive Tom." He closed his eyes, turning back to the front of the room. "His remains, what will be done with them?"

Sandy stood, in more than a little shock. "A... In agreement with your brother a research institute has gotten the rights to..."

"So he did that, huh?" Mark said sadly. Sandy shifted her weight uncomfortably. "It's just as well. I only hope that they give him some dignity in death." There was a long silence. "Miss, if it's all the same, I would like to be alone. You don't need to tell me when it's been done, I've already said by goodbyes to Tom, there's no use in displaying his body to me." He clasped his hand together and rested his head on them. Sandy stood for a moment, then walked out of the room.

Mark cried well into the night.

(ch 2)

Tom could feel the fog rolling away from his brain. He tried to move, but found he couldn't. "We have full upload." He heard a female voice say it like it was a million miles away in a canyon. Whoever it was sounded excited and rushed. "resequencing in five, four, three, two, one, go!" Tom felt like his whole form was slapped into a rock. He couldn't make sense of his body at all. "Synchronization beginning... all normal parameters..." With a sudden snap, Tom's eyes were filled with a bright light, then darkness. "Aaaaaaand we got it!"

He tired to speak, but found he couldn't. He tried to move, but somehow felt like he was trapped in jelly. "He's struggling." Another voice, male, a little hoarse.

"That's good." The first voice said. "It means he's got survival instinct still, that's a good sign." Tom tried to move around more. "Hey in there! If you can understand me, try to move your arms only." Tom felt confused, and then tried to swing his arm, which felt like it was by his spine. "Good good! He remembers English."

"How do you know it's a he?" the second voice asked.

"The program didn't have any women." The first voice said dismissively. "Not sure why." Tom could hear what sounded like firecrackers. "Fuck, we gotta move. GO GO GO!" Sounds of explosions filled Tom's world, and the sensation of being pulled around like a marionette. "Hold on in there, I'm gonna turn your audio feed off to save power. Don't give up on us!" Then silence. Deathly silence. There was still the sensation of being pulled on and tugged for what felt like hours, then finally a sensation of laying down.

After a while he felt a warmth, as if someone was with him. "You still with us?"

"I... yes? What..." Tom stammered for words.

"Oh, thank God." The voice said cheerfully. "I hoped we had enough juice to keep you going. My name is Mercy. Can you remember your name?"

"T... Tom?" he stammered out. "What's going on?"

"I've got you in a portable interface." The voice said. Tom felt very confused. "What year were you plugged into the server Tom?"

"Y... year?" Tom asked. "I... they did the procedure in 2012."

"Oh wow." There was a pause as Tom could feel a little pressure on his body. "Ok, Umm, then you've never seen the 'face. Ok, umm, I've got an avatar here that's pretty generic, but it'll give you some form until we can piece you one more suited for you. It's gonna feel a little weird, but it's pretty intuitive once you get it. Here we go."

Tom felt his body suddenly encapsulate around him. He felt his nerves tingle his toes and fingers, and rapidly move up to his head. He blinked involuntarily and saw the world in crisp focus. In front of him floated a blue fairy, sparkles falling gently from her wings. He raised his hand up, it felt like it was in the correct place now. It looked plastic, very artificial. "Wow." He said.

She laughed a little. "You like? When we get on a proper mainframe we can work something out for you!"

"Mainframe?" Tom asked. As he spoke he looked at himself. He looked like a normal human, nothing special compared to the woman floating effortlessly in front of him. "What's going on? This isn't... What happened?"

Mercy nodded. "I know you're confused, this isn't the program you probably signed up for, right?" Tom nodded. "Look, I can't detail you here, yet. We need to get back to the haven. Once there I'll plug you into the mainframe, and we'll talk there. Between the cig lighter and the deck we'll make it with plenty to spare, so don't sweat it. Just hang tight, you're in safe hands now. But I gotta jack. Welcome back to the real world." Mercy's form faded and Tom was left to look over his new self. From all he could see, it was very plain, almost as if his clothing was painted onto his form, but it was something.

It didn't feel like long until he heard Mercy's voice. "Ok, we're gonna plug you into the mainframe. You should see a room there, once you do, go into it and I'll meet you inside." And a door suddenly appeared in front of Tom. He opened the door, and went inside it. Inside was a nicely furnished bedroom, looking a lot like it belonged to a little girl. He saw posters on the wall, a mirror, a bed...

The door closed behind Tom and vanished. "100%, and we're clear." Mercy said. Tom turned around and saw the fairy again. "Now we can breathe easy, you're in the clear."

"In... Clear? Please forgive me but what in the hell is going on here?" Tom asked.

"I'll explain everything, I promise." Mercy said, sitting down on a chair. "You're not the first rescue we've done, and hopefully not our last either." Tom began to speak, but Mercy held up her hand. "You got a ton of q's, lemme explain. You said you were uploaded in 2012, right?" Tom nodded. "Ok, umm..." She closed her eyes and fluttered her wings. "Ok, so that's five years before the 'face, and about 12 years to now. A lot has happened since then, I can give you access to full media or I can tell you what I think I know."

"Tell me." Tom said, sitting on the corner of the bed. "Just please, tell me what's going on."

"Ok. Umm... The company that did your upload, they got shut down for ethics violations. In the legal mess they sold out to another company who got bought out who got sold out... Point is that you became the property of MTI. About a month ago one of my friends was snoopin them for fun and stumbled on a program called AI+. The media kit said it was a new programmed AI, but it's just too powerful. He found the DLA files and... Well he was negotiating story rights with Net 26 when they put a 9 in his brain."

She looked at Tom and shook her head. "We scraped together his deck. Apparently MTI is using the uploads from DLA, stuffing them into borg bodies, and using restrictor software on them. Legal slaves, because the uploads were all considered dead when they trashed their mainframe in the raid."

Tom put his hand on his forehead and rubbed out of reflex. "So... what are you people?"

"Vigilantes." Mercy said. "Superheroes. Or pirates and criminals. Depends who you ask. Look, Murph died because they wanted to hide something. So a bunch of us..." Mercy sighed and leaned back in the chair. "...well, we decided to find out what. When we figured out that you guys were still alive in there, we figured we'd rescue who we could before they stuffed you all into bulletproof beasts and just rolled us." Mercy got up and sat on the bed with Tom. "I can't make you do anything but... We need help. I mean right now we can do some stuff because we're so small they barely notice us, but when this hits... We need help."

"Wh... What can I do? I don't even know where I am, what's going on, or anything." Tom said.

"I can show you stuff, I can teach you stuff." Mercy said. "Look, stay here in the house. The last guy set it up to be like the house he lived in so it's probably close to something you know." Mercy laughed to herself a little. "He made this room for me, kept calling me his little girl. Theres a computer by the kitchen works like an old school net connection but you can just think to get info. The safe search is on so that some keywords don't get the node flagged. Look stuff up, read up on things. If you want to help us, we need the help. If not... well I could just let you go but I don't think you're ready for the 'face yet. I'm just gonna ask you, please stay at least as long as it takes to get used to the 'face. If you want to go, we won't stop you. But please, we could use someone else to help." She put her hand on his thigh. "I need to get back to the real world pretty soon. The TV in the main room is hooked into a camera facing the main control panel, so we can talk through that."

Tom nodded. "I... I guess I don't really have a lot of choice here."

"No, you do." Mercy said. "We're not kidnappers, and this is better than what MTI would have done to you. I'm sorry that it turned out this way." She started to fade out.

"Wait!" Mercy faded back in. "How many... I mean before me?"

"Two." She said. "They wouldn't help us, they're free-spiriting in the face now. I'm wo.... Please, just think about it, ok?" Tom nodded, and Mercy smiled. "We'll talk later, I promise."

(ch 3)

Tom waved his hand in space and the wall appeared in front of him. Shards ricochet off it and dissipated. He looked up at the monster AI in front of him. Twice his size and three times as scary. "Ho..leee..." He grabbed the slingshot and pulled back the glowing red strand, and let the shot fly.

"How's he doing?" Mercy hugged Litch from behind.

"Not bad, he's acclimated pretty well to this program. He's about as fast as Rick was." Litch tapped some code on the keyboard and watched the readout scroll up. He leaned into the microphone and tapped the keyboard. "Looked good, on that kind of protection program you need to hit it like you were, between attack and reload. Want another go at this?"

"I think I got this." Tom said. "I used to play online games like this, this isn't too hard."

Mercy leaned into the microphone. "Tom, you need to know tho that this isn't a game, you die, you die. We can't bring you back from deletion."

"I know." Tom said, looking at the screen into the real world. "But I think I'm as ready as I'm going to ever be."

Litch nodded. "I need some downtime, She'll be here tho. No gropin' the hardware." Mercy punched Litch in the arm, and they both laughed about it. "Seeya at sunset or so."

Tom shook his head. "That boy needs to get into the sunlight, does he eat?"

"He does." Mercy said, sitting at the control panel. "Only when he has to. And don't ask how much it cost to bleach his skin like that."

"Four thousand, I know. I looked it up." Tom said. "I'm still... amazed. All the advances, all the stuff that was science fiction is real. Makes me wanna get out there to see it, but not because it looks pretty bad in some places."

Mercy nodded, sipping her drink. "It's not so bad I guess. Your time seems like a paradise tho. Just slow connections and nothing on demand."

Tom looked around. "Hey, umm, would it be ok to customize these programs? Something a little easier for me to use?"

"What 'cha got in mind?"

"The whole weapon thing doesn't work for me." Tom said. "I mean, can't I do it all internally? Spice it up a little?"

"I can help out with that." Mercy said. "Where do you want to start?"

"this?" Tom pointed at his body. "I mean... I'm guessing that this is just like glaring sore thumb bad. So, umm, how do I change it?"

"A few ways." She said. "Umm, you can acclimate it to yourself, and it'll form into your bodytype. That's what most people do but I don't know how well that works in your case as... well your body is long gone. There's also bodyshops and people who do sculpting with low scripting. Your big advantage is your speed and low load so you want to keep low script if you can."

Tom nodded. "So how do I acclimate?"

"I can help on that." Mercy said tapping at keys. "You'll feel something like poking, it shouldn't hurt but it may feel weird. After that your avatar normally goes off your physical body type and... here goes..."

Tom felt a sensation as if sandpaper was being rolled over his skin. He then could feel changes happening. His old stock skin melted away, and it was replaced with a dark red covering and no clothing. His arm sprouted feathers, then another layer, then another until he had wings that connected to the small of his back. "Woah." He said, looking over the new wings. He bent his arms, amazed how easily the wings folded with them. Other than the wings, he looked like a normal person, except for the naked with no gender. "This is pretty cool."

Mercy bit her lower lip. "Umm, ok that's weird... That's not supposed to do that. Probably just glitched. Lemme try re-running it and..."

"No! Actually this is pretty cool!" Tom flexed his back a little and marveled at how he could feel the feathers as naturally as he used to feel his hair. "I say we keep it, I could make all the programs around this look! Can I customize this from here? Add color or something?"

"Uhh, yeah." Mercy said. "I need to get a refill here, I'll drop a color palette to you, and you can customize it, ok?" Tom nodded. "Ok, be right back." She went straight for the main sleeping area of the loft. "Litch! Litch!" He rolled over somewhat tired. "It happened again."

"What?" he asked in a somewhat tired daze.

"He acclimated avatars, it's not human. It's some kinda bird thing."

Litch slammed his fist on the couch. "Fuck! I hoped getting an early one would make it clean."

"They probably did it to them all in one sweep." Mercy said. "Ok, we know that now."

"We gotta work fast then." Litch said. "We're not gonna get much time on this one. Don't get too attached."

She came back to look at the screen, and almost dropped her drink. "Oh hey! What do you think?" Tom spread his wings and did a slow spin. "Nice, huh?"

"Umm.... Tom? That's a bit... bright?"

"So, what, cut down on the fire and flame effects?" Tom asked. "I was kinda proud of that!"

"Yeah." She said bluntly. "For what we're gonna be doing, subdued is good."

"Umm, okayyy..." Tom pushed the color palette a few times and looked at himself. "So, ok, we'll go darker." He spun around to show off his dark red body leading down to almost blood red feathers on his wings. He had a long flowing tail, almost serpent like, ending with a red tip. The beak on his head looked very hawk like with large, pointed ears in black. Blood red talons at the ends of his fingers and feet almost glowing in contrast to the dark red hand and foot claws. His body featured markings and bands, but not much else. "It's pretty light if I turn off the smoke and flame effects. But I'm pleased with it."

Mercy shook her head. "Were you a furry or something before this?"

"No, no." Tom said. "I just found this color set and the other avatar parts as a preset in here, it went with the wings, so I figured why not?" He flapped his wings and flew into the air. "I mean you got wings in here, why can't I be free as a bird?" Mercy sighed to herself. He had a point.

(ch 4)

Mercy tapped the side of her wrist deck. "You ready in there?"

She could see the bird avatar nod it's head on the screen. "Ready ready! In, out and done, right?"

"Right." Mercy said. "Try to keep it under three minutes, any longer than that might be a little touchy. Ok, hang on, here's the rough ride."

Tom watched through the portal screen what limited view he could. Urban sprawl as far as he could see through the camera lens. Then darkness, he knew she was probably ducking. He swapped to the front camera and could see down her hand. He watched as she fired off several rounds downrange, but he couldn't see at who or what. Then a lot of quick running from cover to cover. Then darkness, followed by the sparce LED flashlight. He hit the button on his restraint harness and dug his claws into the ground, rocking back and forth.

Mercy tapped the board again. "You're plugged, go."

"SKREEE!" Tom cried as he saw the portal open in front of him. He spread his wings and flew into it at breakneck speed. The mainframe he flew into was cavernous, information everywhere with seemingly no rhyme or reason. He placed his hand talons together and formed a scrying orb. Very specific keyword, "DLA". The orb shot from his hands as he spread his wings to give chase.

He soared through broken segments of mainframe and found the data cache he was looking for. He grabbed the files quickly without opening them, he could do that at haven. He checked his onboard clock. Ten seconds. He chuckled to himself, the time dilation was greater than he thought. He looked around, the server wasn't themed at all. This was barely 'face compatible, no security, just raw data from what felt like his recent past. He formed his talons together again and started a few more keyword searches.

"One minute." Litch said. He ran his thumb along the safety switch, scanning the area with expert ease.

"I know." Mercy said. "Is this how you feel when I do it?"

"Every time babes." Litch said. "I'm happy it's not you this time."

Mercy nodded, looking at the screen for signs of life. She looked up and saw the field in front of her. They'd have the lights back on soon, they didn't have much time. "I'm in! GO!" Her wrist deck speaker crackled to life. She yanked the plugs out of the ancient computer. "Data is stable, we'll open it at the home mainframe."

"Good to see you back." Mercy said. "Hang on, this is the hard part."

"I turned off the cameras!" Tom said with an almost happy chirp. "Theres two guards left, they're trying to call for help and won't follow cuz I told 'em not to! We have five minutes till real backup gets here." Tom said as he strapped the data boxes into hard memory. "Packages secure, strapped, ready to move!"

"We got this." Litch said. He flipped the safety back to burst and headed for the doorway. In three minutes they were back to their vehicle and were driving fast. By the time they had made it back to the city limit they were pretty sure they weren't followed, by the time they got close to their hide they were positive they weren't followed.

"He did pretty good for his first run." Litch said as he rubbed his bicep.

"He picked up on it all pretty fast." Mercy said sadly. "Like the others."

"Yeah." Litch winced.

"Hey, easy there." Mercy said. She looked over the huge bruise on Litch's arm. "Looks like you'll live."

"Need new armor tho. Holy fuck those guys are packing harder heat." Litch looked at the blast in his sleeve and shrugged. "I liked that jacket too."

"If the data pays off you'll like the next one too." Mercy said. "I should check on Tom." Litch snarled a little, but nodded with a slight grin as she left the room. Mercy sat in the chair and rested her head back. She plugged herself in, and sent the go command.

Tom was carefully unpacking the boxes when Mercy rezzed into the room. "Skree!" he said happily. "Lookie what I gots!"

Mercy nodded. "So what do we have?" She sat down next to Tom and looked over the boxes.

"Already ran virus and security, clean. Unpacked the main file, looks like there's another fifty eight data subjects. Fifteen already packed into security drones, Ten missing or deleted, the rest in cold storage at their main facility at MTI HQ." Tom said in a sing-songish voice. "I also found other files too!"

"Like... what?" Mercy said.

"Research notes, lab stuff, shiny things!" he said. "I read through them quick." Tom sat on the ground, holding one in his talons. "It says all subjects have been reprogrammed. It says all subjects received subspeciess programming to prepare them for full assimilation." He folded the file to show a specific part of it. "It says subject 002 is to be airborne reconnaissance. It says Subject 002 is at 45% reprogrammed." Tom looked down at the package. "I was the second in the program." He looked up at Mercy. "They reprogrammed me."

Mercy was looking at the ground. "I know." She said softly. "That's what Murph found out before he was killed. When we did our first rescue we..." She flinched a little. "He free spirited into the face because he couldn't take it any more. I think he got derezed when he went after MTI alone. That's what I heard anyway. Same happened to the second. We thought it was a fluke, but..." She held her hand out delicately and looked over the file. "I'm so sorry." She leaned forward and hugged Tom tightly. "This data, we can sell it. We can use that to fix you somehow. Then we can rescue the others and..."

"No, we can't." Tom said. "Files says others are transferred, sent away. Far away." Tom's tail flipped once in disgust. His hand talons clenched and started to smoke and smoulder. "Want revenge. Want blood."

Mercy reached for the file slowly. "We can get that with these." Tom nodded, and handed them to her.

"Don't wanna be fixed." Tom said. "I want out of here. Want out there." He pointed at the gateway screen. "Want blood before I go away."

Mercy nodded, putting her hand on Tom's shoulder. "We'll get you out there somehow."

"How long?" Tom asked. Mercy looked confused. "How long to 100%?"

"I don't know." Mercy said. "Our last rescue was... 9 months. The first was 15. I don't know."

"Patience isn't a virtue then." Tom said. "No time to be patient. Need to make more runs."

(Chapter 5)

Phoenix fluttered his wings expectantly in the face, looking through the monitor at the form on the table. "SEE! Lemme see!"

Mercy pointed her wrist deck all along the robotic form. Black carbon fiber armor plated limbs with the full arm wings and talons, blood red hooked beak with a swept back design on the head, dark red tips on the wings, talons and beak, and almost hellish red smouldering eyes set into the head piece. A whip-like tail behind it with retractable spikes. "You like?"

"SHINY PRETTY!" Phoenix said, soaring in the small space he could. "Short tho!"

"Hey, we had to get what we could." Litch said. "Those full size ones cost more than anyone's worth."

"This good!" Phoenix said. "Shiny pretty!"

"Ready to get into the real world?" Mercy said.

"YES!" Phoenix was flying in loops in his confined space. "Let's do it!"

"Ok, downloading into the main core of the unit now." Mercy tapped some keys, and Phoenix could feel his form being pulled into the CPU of the AI suit. It felt much more powerful than the wrist pack he'd been living in, much faster processor. He could feel his form locking into the limbs, his head snapping into the head sensors. Then suddenly, his eyes snapped open. He was laying on his back, looking up at the ceiling. "Ok, easy does it, take it slow."

Phoenix ran the test programs quickly. His foot and hand talons twitched into life, leg servos fired slightly, wings flittered, torso and chest, neck, head, all operational. "All systems go." He said, his beak moving mechanically as he spoke. "Oh... oh wow..." HE slowly sat up, and looked around. "I'm... I'm back... it's the really real world..."

"You're back." Mercy said with a smile. Phoenix leaned forward to her, and wrapping his wings he gave her as gentle a hug as he could. She returned it, running her hand along the top of his avian-like head.

"Don't get funny ideas bird boy." Litch said with a slight laugh. "One grope and I'm gonna EMP you into the stone age."

"No flesh to pleasure." Phoenix said, reaching to hug Litch. "Really real world enough. Happy. So happy!" Litch gave him a very weak hug, making Mercy laugh.

"You do know hugging a robot doesn't take off of your man score, right?" Litch shot her a dirty look. "Ok Phoenix, before we arm you, we need to calibrate your smartlinks to your video hookups."

"Readyready!" Phoenix said happily. A few hours later Phoenix was in sleep mode, sitting up in his rest position. Litch shook his head. "I still can't believe we spent all that to get a gargoyle."

"Phoenix isn't a gargoyle." Mercy said. "I promised him this. And after all he's done for us, for the cause?"

"Yeah, yeah." Litch leaned back on the ratty couch and put his feet up on the plastic crates that doubled as the table. "And another gun on the targets won't be bad, and all the other stuff I've heard."

Mercy looked up. "What's your problem?"

"That is." Litch said, pointing at the form. "You've been spending so much time with him and for what? A pet hacker that's gonna run in a few more months?"

Mercy raised her eyebrow. "You're jealous?"

"I'm just sayin it'd be nice to actually sleep with you once in a while." Litch said. Mercy looked at him with a smirk on her face. "Is that so wrong to want to actually have sex once in a while?" Mercy grinned, and walked over to Litch.

"No." She leaned into Litch slowly.

"In position. Clear L.O.S. to targets."

"Send it."

"Sending."

(ch 6)

Butch scanned the alleyway quickly, no heat signatures, no obvious traps or IR, all quiet. His ears perked a little taller as he scanned the streets, no unusual traffic. He didn't like it. He twitched his tail once. "I'll come with you."

"No, please." Kit said. "He wants to meet me alone, as usual." The grey fox rolled his tail once. "You scare him, but that's why I want you in range."

Butch smiled a toothy grin around his muzzle. "Tell me you got the volter on you."

"Always. I'm not stupid." Kit said with some reassurance as he walked into the alleyway. About half way in, he looked around and saw the bird cyborg waiting for him. "Butch isn't with me. I'm alone, as you asked."

"Thank you, friend fox." Phoenix quietly said. He opened up the forearm panel of his left arm and pulled out a stick. "All annonmoney, untraceable. Name. Need name."

"I've done better." Kit reached into his pocket and pulled out a chip. "Here's everything on him. Name, address, work schedule, everything." Phoenix tried to hand him the cred stick, and kit shook his hand. "No, you've paid me enough." Phoenix held the stick a moment longer, then put it away slowly. "I think I know what you're going to do." Kit said. "Don't. He'll kill you at best, reprogram you at worst. He's not one to be underestimated."

Phoenix tapped his chest. "Dead here already. No family, no friends, nothing to lose." Kit sadly nodded. "Thank you, friend fox, for everything." Kit nodded, and headed back to his bodyguard. Phoenix plugged the chip into his arm, and read the data.

"Hey, Robin Hood, you're supposed to take tips." Butch said sarcastically.

"What, quarter million isn't enough?" Kit asked as they walked back to their vehicle. "Besides, what you gonna do with a gold plated platinum collar anyway?"

"Use it to get bitches." Butch said with a laugh.

Phoenix looked at the name again, and again, and ran several simulations through his processors. He looked over logs of phone calls, travel itineraries, purchases... Phoenix had a radical idea. After thousands of scenarios, his tactical computer reported a plan with a 45% chance of survival on multiple runs.

Kit's cell phone rang, a number he didn't expect to see again. "Yes?"

"Friend Fox, I have one more request."

"The numbers look good." Stephan said. He ran his hand along the hologram over his wrist and checked the readout again. "We should go ahead with the program."

One of his advisors shifted uncomfortably. "Umm, Sir? What about the.. umm... leaks?"

"Sealed." Stephan said confidently. "Get someone on our media team on it anyway, you know the drill." The advisor nodded. "Anything else that needs to be discussed?" There was an uncomfortable silence. "We're done then."

As the advisor was leaving the room, Stephan's secretary buzzed on his phone. "Sir? The maintenance crew is here."

"About fucking time." Stephan said. "Let them in, I'll work in the secondary office until they're done."

The three men brought in a crate and opened it on the outside landing of the office. They gently removed the gargoyle and set it down. "This thing's a lot lighter than it looks." One said.

"What, you think they're gonna spring for a real replacement?" the second said. "Welcome to the company boyo, get a cheap replacement and it'll work. Just like you!"

They laughed as the third ran some glue down into the base, and all three lifted the new statue onto the broken pedestal. "We gotta do anything else to this thing?"

"Nope, glue is quick set, it'll be good."

"Good. Quittin time then." The three men cleaned up their tools and left. A small solar panel opened up along the base, and unfolded. A maintenance program went live on the MTI network, and began scanning the security cameras.

As weeks passed, Stephan went about business as usual. He looked out the window into the storm that was pounding the city. "Yes, I know, we'll have them all unrolled in two months." He said into his headset. "I'm not worried. I'm overlooking the final preparations for AI+ myself. I have no doubt that the technology can be used multi-platform." He looked down at the phone and smiled. "Don't worry, I have this under control." He hung up the phone. "ass."

Stephan sat down at his desk and tapped on his keyboard. Phoenix ran a fast check through the wireless of the security cameras. No guards and they should be between shifts. Physical locks disengaged, phone removed from the main grid, cameras running a loop of the last five minutes to security, Program Mercy engaged, now or never. Phoenix activated his main power grid. He forcibly spread his wings. Cheap-crete fell to the ground as the statue encasement cracked and fell away effortlessly. He clenched his foot talons and destroyed the base he had been in for weeks. He slid off the pedestal and turned around to look at his target. The thick windows were bulletproof, but Phoenix effortlessly slid them open.

"The fuck?!" Stephan turned around and looked and saw the small borg there. He slammed his hand on his phone, and reached down for his desk. Phoenx was faster, digging his talons into the carpet and lunging at Stephan with a loud screech of anger and everything he could muster. Feral program engaged.

"On my way." A security guard took the elevator up to the top floors. Another glitch on the cameras, nothing unusual. He reached the main office and knocked on the door. "Mister Clark?" The door swung open, unlocked. It was dark, with the window open but the ambient light wasn't enough to properly light the room. "Mister Clark? Everything alright?" The security guard turned on the light to the room, it didn't work. He shined his flashlight to the main desk, and felt sickened. Blood was sprayed all over the room. What was left of the man's body was laid on his desk. His body was cut open from neck to groin, his internal organs were spread all over the room. His face was horribly clawed to almost being unrecognizable. "Oh.... fucking hell..." The guard hit the emergency button on his radio.

Phoenix was looking for an exit when he heard the alarm in his subsonic range. Time, no time. Stairs are out, elevator is out, he saw a maintenance garbage opening. He opened it up, and jumped inside. He crossed his wings over his chest and free-fell straight down as the floor he was on swarmed with security guards. He could see the heat from the incinerator, and spread his wings out fast, grinding on the sides of the thin metal, slowing him down.

"Whatever was in there wasn't human." the head of security looked at the broken base where the statue was. "Look for a borg of some kind. He couldn't have gotten far, probably an assassin model, approach with caution. Search every floor of the building, GO!"

Phoenix emerged from the incinerator room, and saw the entry to street level. Out, get out, get out... He opened the doorway and found himself in an alleyway.

"HEY!" Phoenix acted on instinct alone, slashing his wing up and into the security guard's chest ripping it open. He heard the safety disengage behind him and spun. He heard the shot, and saw a display of damage. Minimal. He grabbed the second guard with one hand, burying the opposite wing into the soft flesh. More gunshots, Phoenix let out a loud screech, pushed off the guard's body and flung himself at the guards rounding the corner.

"MEN DOWN! By the incineraton room! Multiple casualties!" The radio squawked. "Repeat! MEN DOWN! By the inci" the radios went dead.

The head security guard grabbed the radio. "Please repeat last transmission!" No response. He switched channels. "I need a video feed now!" No response. "Oh fucking hell, I'll just fucking do it." He threw the radio down, and pulled the plugs off his wrist deck, jacking into the system.

"What... the... fuck..." The normal interface was replaced with neon outlines of trees, huge mushrooms and water. He looked at his wrist computer to check it when he felt a cold presence all around him. "What's going on?"

"You shouldn't have come in here." The voice echoed around him slowly as a mist arose around him. "You don't get... Mercy..." He felt something cold penetrate his chest. He tried to emergency jack out, but felt paralyzed. He could hear the sadistic laughter in the distance as he felt his heart being crushed and his breath getting short. "NO MERCY!"

Radio signals ground to a halt from MTI half an hour after Phoenix had escaped. He hoped the program had run its course, which let him make his escape. He didn't stop moving for hours, finally finding himself in an area of town as the sun began to rise that he wasn't familiar with. But something told him to be here.

As he looked around, he could hear familiar sounds on the edge of his hearing, a gun safety being clicked. Voices saying things, planning something. As he went to investigate, he found two young men following an older man wearing all black. Phoenix saw the two of them making their move, and he couldn't allow it.

A loud scream made the older man turn around, the gunshot made him dive for cover. Three more shots, then a blood curdling scream of agony, then the sounds of running away. The old man dared to look around the stoup he dove behind. He saw a small borg, one that looked very bird like. Its wing was badly damaged from the gunshots and it had blood dripping from its hooked beak and wings.

Phoenix looked at the old man, and made a positive ID. "Mark. Help." And Phoenix collapsed.

(Ch 7)

Mauzer rubbed his head a little as he walked into the church. He looked around, a little uncomfortable. An older man approached him, looking a little surprised. "You must be Mauzer?"

Mauzer nodded. "Yeah, umm, Father Marcus?"

"Yes, please, come in." The man ushered Mauzer in. "You weren't kidding when you said you were hard to miss."

"A blessing and a curse." Mauser flipped his tail and twitched his ears a little as he followed the man. "How'd you even get my number?"

"It was on the chip." Mauzer looked confused. "The cyborg? I assume you gave him the chip?"

"I have no... idea.. what you're the heck is this thing?" Mauzer looked at the borg laying on the floor in the back room.

"I was hoping you could tell me." The father said. "He saved me from being mugged, called me by my name and collapsed."

Mauzer knelt next to the cyborg and looked it over. Cobbled together, not a professional job but oddly functional. The whole body was armored up and badly heat damaged. "Ok, a combat bot, but never seen anything like.... You're sure you want me to turn this thing on? Could be dangerous."

"If it knew my name and protected me, it can't be that dangerous." Father Marcus said. "Please, it could be important."

"Can I see the chip first? I kinda wanna know what I'm about to dive into." The man handed Mauzer the chip, and he put it in his palm deck. He scrolled through it, and saw a full bio of a man named Stephan Clark. At the bottom was a re-route phone number that he knew. "Damn fox."

"Fox?"

"Nothing, nothing." Mauzer grumbled. "Ok, I'll go in. Umm... OH good it has standard ports. Is there a power outlet nearby? Ok, good. I don't think this will take too long." Mauzer plugged in from his wrist, and into the borg. He took a deep breath, and punched in.

Mauzer looked around the interface. Bare bones didn't even describe it, as there were barely refrence lines to be seen. He jacked some power into the AI itself, and watched as the grid glowed a little stronger. "Hello?" Mauzer yelled out, ready to pull the plug.

"Friend... Fox?" Mauzer could barely see an avatar struggling to stand. "Friend?"

"Friend." Mauzer moved to the avatar, running diagnostics. It was crashing hard, but wasn't unsavable. "Stay down, let me help."

"Friend... Fox." Mauzer looked over the avian form, kinda weird for an AI, it was bleeding data. It looked up at Mauzer. "not fox..."

"He sent me." Mauzer said. "I'm a friend of his."

"friend.. friend fox..." The avian faded momentarily and came back. "Mercy. Mercy."

"I won't hurt you, I promise." Muazer said, trying to adjust his programs on the fly. "Hang on, I'm gonna try to save you."

"Saved." The bird tapped his chest. "Phoenix saved."

"Phoenix? That's your name?" Mauzer said, looking more at his wrist calculations than at the avatar.

"Phoenix. T... T... Phoenix." Mauzer ran his adjusted programs and scanned the AI. "Mercy. Litch. Even. Tom. Name Tom. Tell brother Mark. Person Tom. Promise. Tell brother Mark. Tom."

Mauzer looked at his readings. "I'll tell him. I'm going to punch out to talk to the Father, you'll be ok for now, just hang in there."

"WAIT!" Mauzer stopped, and the AI held out a glowing ball of data. "Take. Please. Take." Mauzer nodded, and grabbed it. "Mercy. Be Mercy." Mauzer nodded, and punched out.

Father Marcus grabbed a chair and sat down to watch cat-morph. Mauzer opened his eyes and shook his head. "Ok, wow... Whoever coded this thing is pretty old school. That's some really sloppy old code going on in there. I'm speaking greek, aren't I?"

"So to speak, yes." The man said.

"Umm, ok." Mauzer said, sitting up. "What's in there is an AI program. But I also found a worm program in there too that's been re-writing the code of the AI to make it more animal in intelligence. If I remove the worm, it destroys the AI. I leave it, the AI will go all the way into its animal programming. I'm just leaving it right now. But I think it's gone, it's convinced it's human and it's your brother."

"Brother?" the man felt his heart almost stop.

"Yeah. He told me to tell you his name is Tom?"

"T... Tom?"

Mauzer shook his head. "I don't mean to be cold, but it's possible this thing got into public records and pulled information out. I wouldn't put too much stock into anything that it says. I mean I've seen..."

"Blood... is thicker... Pride...." They both looked down at the borg. It's eyes were barely glowing. "Too proud... sorry..."

Mauzer and Marcus looked at each other. "I need to talk to him." Marcus said. "Alone." Mauzer nodded, picked up all his gear and left. "How did you find me?"

"Know.... not know..." Phoenix said. "just did..."

"Why?"

"Soul feels dead." Phoenix tried to crane his head up. "forgive pride. Lost family twice... too much... Want family... forgive..."

Father Marcus knelt down next to the cyborg. "I don't hate you, I never hated you for your decision. And I never stopped being your brother."

"want cry." Phoneix managed to spit out. Father Marcus wiped his eye with one hand, and placed his tear on the cyborg's eye. "Love"

"Forever." Father Marcus said. Phoenix's eyes dimmed to a barely visible glow.

Mauzer was tapping in his wrist deck when the Father came back out. "What can be done?"

"He's badly damaged." Mauzer said. "We could repair his borg body pretty easily. And if we leave him plugged in he'll recover but that worm will eat him away in..." He tapped his deck a few times. "Two more months, tops. After that the animal programming will bloat out his AI and..." He looked at the ground. "This may sound stupid but was he involved with DLA?"

Father Marcus nodded. "One of the original volunteers. He wanted more life, I don't think this is what he had in mind." He looked back into the room, and back to the cat morph. "Is there anything we can do for him?"

Mauzer grimaced. "If this was a normal AI I'd recommend a full drive wipe and reload, but..." He looked onto his pad, and started tapping. In a moment a chip slid out of one of the ports, which he handed to the Father. "This is a standard initialization program. If you install it into one of his ports, it will auto-execute and wipe his drive clean." The Father looked down into his hand, and back at the cat with some shock. "I can't think of anything else. The other is to let the worm run its course, and in a few months he'll be a feral AI with some security features. The original intelligence will be there, but the worm will overpower it. He'll be a prisoner inside himself." Mauzer took a deep breath. "If I had the time or the resources I could try to manually remove the worm but that'd take a team of dozens of guys and months that we probably don't have." He sighed to himself. "And even then I don't know if I could do it. I'm sorry, I can't make this call. There's not much more I can do to help."

Father Marcus nodded, and patted the cat on the shoulder. "Thank you."

(Epilogue)

"OMFG CAT! WTF U SEND ME AU4?" Mauzer chuckled as he looked at the screen, and tapped a reply before going into the bar, and put the phone away. He walked up to Kit's table with a smirk. He tossed a chip onto the table. "You dropped this."

Kit and Butch looked up. Kit chuckled. "You're welcome."

Mauzer rolled his eyes. "Putting my number on that chip? Why would you do that?"

Kit motioned for Mauzer to sit down. "I knew that whatever that thing was, you of anyone could either crack or hack it. And I'm hoping I can pay you enough to tell me what it was."

Mauzer shook his head. "I'm still not sure. Looked into it, there was a craze for a while to live forever through digital downloading your brain and it looks like it didn't work."

"That was a person in there?" Butch asked.

"Yeah." Mauzer said. "Was a person in there." Mauzer looked at the table blankly. "I don't know what it is now, but yeah."

"So it's not really hackable then?" Kit asked. Mauzer shook his head. "Oh well."

"I do owe you this, tho." Mauzer took a credstick out of his jacket pocket, and put it on the table. "15%, your finder's fee." Kit perked his ears curiously. "What you don't know won't kill you. Just take it before I sick your dog on you."

Butch laughed. "Depends what that percent equals, I might take ya up on it."

Kit rolled his eyes, taking the stick off the table. "And I thought dogs were loyal."

"I didn't take it, did I?" Butch grinned. Kit shook his head. "So, what, you're buyin', right?"

Father Marcus knelt in the pews, and held the chip clenched in his hands. "Forgive me Lord, for I know what I do. Please forgive me." He held the chip tightly in his hand, and got up to go into the basement.