FSE

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Rowan checked her watch.

It was almost fifteen minutes past five, and the streets should normally have been crowded with people. At this time of day, Oldtown would be all but heaving with the citizenry, hurrying back and forth between their work and homes. Yet strangely, the hush that had descended around the area seemed all the more invasive, almost oppressive in its silence.

It was quiet. Rowan glanced to her side. The rest of the pavement was deserted; had been since the police warning had gone up several hours ago. People had been ordered to stay indoors, and although the mouse stood beside a dim, unlit bus stop, even the public transport that would normally stop here every ten minutes had vanished.

She checked her watch again, and began to wonder if she should call Cybe. The message had been straightforward enough, to meet her here at this time. Rowan pursed her lips, pacing lightly.

From the far side of the street, a soft rumble began to echo. The mouse looked up, wondering if she should move out of the way and into one of the many nearby alleyways. She held her breath, but released a small exhalation of relief when a group of five figures in off-white robes shuffled their way into view at the far end of the street.

A soft sense of relief filled her. It was just a religious cult. The sight of such groups was nothing unusual to her, or indeed to anybody in the districts of Oldtown. In the bustling shadows of the skyscrapers, it was estimated that a new religious group sprung into being every half hour or so.

Glancing over to her, one of the robed figures began to shuffle his way over. Rowan tried to ignore him, recognising the colour patterns of his attire as one of the Church of the Divine Nanites. She bit her lip. Microtechnology had become a complicated issue in the recent years - with the continued miniaturisation of computerised and technological apparatus, development had begun on creating the smallest functional machines possible. Progress had continued along this route, with the machines themselves building and manufacturing progressively smaller and smaller machines - nanites, mechanical life that existed on a near subatomic level. Traditionally employed by means of terraforming, to allow for the rapid construction of habitable environments that could sustain oxygen-breathing lifeforms on the surface of moons and planets that may once have been entirely uninhabitable, a process by which entire vast swarms of nanites could reconfigure the very cellular makeup of an ecosystem.

For all of the vast potential that nanites could have yielded, as was vocally pointed out by environmentalist lobby groups, the corporations had uncovered an entirely more amoral use for the technology; warfare. Nanite swarms could, and often were, deployed into the front lines of conflicts, where their 'swarms' could enter the battlefield armed with targeted programming specifically keyed in towards specific enemies. Swarms would atypically seek out their targets and reconfigure them on a cellular level, devouring the combatants' flesh and bones, sinew and muscle. It was chemical warfare, but unlike biological agents, it would be given a set target, leaving the deploying side unharmed. In terms of ethics, it was questionable at best.

Rowan batted the offered leaflet away. The figure shrugged, and turned to walk away. Silence returned to the streets.

A small message pinged, illuminating her wristwatch with a light flickering. She clicked on it, pulling up the note. "Step right twice" it read.

She had no reason to believe that there was any reason to do as the message instructed, but nevertheless she humoured it.

One step, she took. Then another.

A whistling sound filled the air. Rowan glanced up, barely in time to see a small mobile police model tank, roughly the size of an SUV, hurtling through the air.

She gave a cry as the heavy police-blue artillery vehicle ploughed into the ground before her, tearing up heavy chunks of tarmac and paving. The bus stop itself crumpled, ripped from the sidewalk with a scream of twisted metal. Rowan instinctively staggered back several steps, barely even noticing that the reaction was needless - the upturned ruptured shards of broken paving ceased barely an inch from where the message had ordered her to stand.

As Roran watched, the cultists each scrambled for cover, scrambling into alleys and behind parked vehicles. Catching her breath, she folded her arms. "Cybe!" she snapped.

The porthole of the tank gave a whine as it unwound. WIth a rasping scream, the dented port swung open, allowing the android wolf to clamber free. "Hey!" she called, giving the mouse a friendly wave. "Did I calculate that right? You're not dead, are you?"

Rowan narrowed her eyes, looking at the tank which was now half-buried in the road. "I regret reprogramming you" she muttered.

Turning away from the mouse for a moment, Cybe reached back down into the interior of the tank, pulling free her pair of sturdy boots. Flopping down in a leisurely pose atop the vehicle, she began to pull them, one at a time, onto her bare feet. "No you don't" she replied. "You love it. How do you like these boots? They're my fascist-kicking boots. This one, it's called Mister Stampy, and this one is Miss Boot-face."

Rowan folded her arms over her chest, and looked around anxiously, wishing that the wolf would hurry up. The reprogramming had, as far as Rowan had been concerned, been one of her greatest works; the complete removal and deletion of all inhibition subroutines within the android's neural processors. It had taken the mouse almost three full days of work, shuffling around in the depths of her laboratory whilst the android remained powered down.

In most androids, especially the CyberaTech ones, the droid's personality was hard-coded into the artificial intelligence of the machine - traits that replicated those of a human being, giving vast degrees of verisimilitude. However in early development, it was found that this alone was not enough to be able to create a machine with a suitably strong enough replica of a near-human personality - androids coded to possess aggressive and dominant personalities would be quick to resort to violence, whilst those who were programmed for sexual recreation would have no hesitation to eschew much of societal expectations. Their functionality was certainly within the realms of their programming, but end users and customers alike found the raw, unfiltered personality to be off-putting at best.

Cybe leapt down from the tank, slapping Rowan warmly on the shoulder with just a little bit too much strength. The mouse staggered a little. "Are we ready to go?" asked the mouse.

The wolf turned, giving the tank one final look, which seemed to be tinged with a little sadness. "Are you sure that we can't take it with us?" she asked. "I don't want to leave her behind."

"Her?" asked Rowan.

The wolf nodded. "Course" she replied.

The mouse pursed her lips, keeping a firm look around for any police. Several of the cultists had began to cautiously step closer, curiosity getting the better of them. "The tank is a woman?"

"The tank" replied Cybe with a chuckle, "is a goddamn queen."

The process to remove the inhibition programs had been an extremely complicated process. Rowan had discovered that the inhibitor was not, as she had initially thought, a single file that was placed within the machine's databanks. Instead, it was an integrated process, one that had been reprogrammed in equal parts between the processor and the memory banks. It did not, however, interfere with the personality matrices themselves - meaning that an android's personality would always be present. It did not prevent the android from possessing those personality traits - instead, the inhibitor prevented them from acting on them, at least to any levels of excess.

Rowan stared at the android, and felt a rush of relief that she hadn't performed the same operation on the male chassis as well. Removing the inhibitor from the android's female form was enough. "Okay" she said, "do you remember our next port of call?"

"We find Luke" replied the wolf, "then we go drinking."

"We find Luke" corrected Rowan, trying to remain calm, "and then we deliver the data to our buyer, finish the mission, and get paid."

Cybe shrugged, fixing her hair once more into its typical spiky shape. "It'll be nice to see that funny little fox-dude again" she commented. "Any idea where we can... hey!"

She turned, her head glancing towards the tank. Looking up from it, a small figure looked at the wolf. Beneath the robes of a thin off-white cowl, the stranger's rodent-like features peered out. He was decked entirely in robes.

The wolf hurried over to him, waving her arms defensively. "That's my tank! Get away from her!"

Rowan reached out, grabbing onto her friend's shoulder. "Just leave it" she muttered.

The robed figure gave the pair an unimpressed look, before turning back to the vehicle, where he began to mumble curious half-formed words.

"Come on" pulled Rowan, motioning with her arms.

"But..." bleated Cybe, "it's my tank! You know what they'll do to it, won't you?"

Rowan grabbed onto Cybe's arm, pulling her forcefully down the street. As the android struggled and resisted, she watched as the cultists began to form around the tank, murmuring to it.

The Church of the Divine Nanites, much like many of the churches, worshipped technology. Their doctrine espoused of their theories of ascendency; the movement from the mortal plane of flesh and steel into a higher realm of being. Their founders believed that through the process of uploading their conscious minds into that of progressively smaller and smaller nanite swarms, their followers would eventually be able to break through the barrier that existed between atomic particles. There, they hoped to discover new microscopic universes, a microverse, awaiting for them; and perhaps somewhere within the very building blocks of the cosmos, they would find God awaiting them. As Cybe yelled angrily at them, it was evident that their group had decided that the tank would make a lovely vessel to be converted into a plentiful nanite swarm in the aid of pursuing their quest for a tiny, subatomic deity.

* * *

"I miss my tank" grumbled Cybe as she sunk down onto Rowan's sofa.

The mouse shut the door to her apartment, checking over the security locks one by one as she did so. "It's probably already broken down into a thousand little miniature builder-droids now. It's for the best" she replied as she finished sealing the fifth vacuum-lock, "the cultists have probably helped make sure that there's no evidential remnants of your little joyride."

The android kicked her heavy boots onto the floor with a thud, swinging her feet up onto the mouse's coffee table. Her heel struck against a tangle of wires and sharp electronic wires, which tumbled to the floor. "Woops" she muttered.

"Careful!" Rowan yelped, hurrying across the room, "be very careful with that - if it breaks it could rip open a tear in the fabric of several interconnected dimensions."

Cybe gave a sarcastic roll of her eyes. "Feel bad about using it to scratch my butt now" she commented. "Right, let's get to business."

Propping the half-constructed object back up onto the table, Rowan batted Cybe's bare feet off the table. "Most of the town is in upheaval following the theft of a police tank. It's distracted enough of the city's operations from the site of Luke's truck crash, meaning that we have no reason to believe that he didn't get away safely with your spare body."

"Ah, Luke" said Cybe, wistfully, "that funny lovely little fox. He never could stay out of mischief. Maybe I should put a collar on him so he can't run off."

"What you do in your bedroom" grumbled Rowan, "is no business of mine. This is definitely the single worst, most haphazard and unplanned data theft I've ever taken part in, and that includes the affair in Munich. Did you at least arrange a meet-up place for Luke to go to?"

Cybe shrugged.

"You didn't?" asked the mouse.

"To be honest" replied Cybe, "we were too busy shagging."

Rowan made a playful gagging sound. "Oh, vomit!" she said jocularly. "So where do you think he could be?"

The android tapped her fingers against the arm of the sofa. "No clue" she said. "Could be curled up in my bed for all I know.

"Well let's just hope that he's not stupid enough to go back to his own home" replied Rowan. She turned and pulling a small metal box free from under the table. She flicked it open, "But let's at least check we're armed before moving out."

With a light kick, the android hopped up to her feet. She flexed her arms. "Both working perfectly!" she declared. Then she lifted her fully metallic one, turning it this way and that. "Even the parts that you added, upgraded from factory standard." She gave the air a few playful jabbing punches with it.

Rowan chuckled. "I could still give you more upgrades" she said. "I still think that you would suit boob pistols."

Cybe lowered her arms, and placed her hands squarely on her hips. "Not gonna happen" she replied. "I like this pair the way they are, thank you very much."

The mouse hefted a series of pulse firearms from the locker. "I don't know" she said, "they look a little small."

"Small?" snapped the android, a hint of defensiveness flaring in her voice. "Excuse me, I'm pretty sure they're at least as big as yours!"

"The guns!" replied Rowan, motioning at the weapons. "And I'm serious, it could easily could as a secondary storage compartment for short-range firearms. Why, if I grab a soldering iron right now, I could..."

"Why don't you" retorted Cybe, "wire in a flamethrower to your own arse first? That's a concealed space for a weapon, and would be damn funny to watch you use."

"No can do" replied the mouse, "My rear components are a carbon fiber titanium alloy. They're rated for a class two impact - I had to cut back on the temperature resistance to make that possible."

Cybe canted her head to one side. "You bulletproofed your butt?"

"Not quite. I redesigned the curve to disperse incoming force and impact - but the cushioning is added for comfort of sitting. But in any case, if we're going hunting for Luke then we shouldn't carry anything too conspicuous" she said, examining a plasma rifle that was almost half the height of her torso before choosing against it. Eventually she recovered two sturdy, small plasma pistols, each fitting neatly in her hands. The snub-nosed pistols were perfect, she decided.

Like most plasma weapons, the cartridges within the weapon's metallic casing that contained a semi-liquid ammunition fuel could be readily recharged between uses. Once fully charged, the plasma within was not actually projected from the cartridge itself, but instead created a kinetic charge; a chain reaction that was triggered by the application of electricity from the charging unit to the gelatinous fluid. This allowed a pistol to fire in concurrent, rippling charges; exceptionally fast, but searingly hot. So long as charge remained in the gun, it would be able to continue functioning. Rowan checked the charges. Each was full. Standing, she fastened them onto her belt. "Right, it's time to go hunting. Mission one, find Luke. Mission two, find the data. Mission three, give data to our contact."

"You can scrub mission two from that list" stated Cybe, pulling one of her sturdy boots onto her feet. "Hmmph, can't even relax for five minutes."

"Why's that?"

"Because" explained Cybe as she fastened up her laces, "the data's stored inside Luke's internal memory core. He just doesn't know about it."

* * *

For what seemed to be an eternity, Luke slumbered.

At the time, he was fully aware that he was asleep. He felt the weightless easiness of his sleep; the warm, comforting closeness of the restful night enveloping him. It reminded him of winter with his family, of frost-bitten noses kept warm only by the heavy odour of their building's central heating system.

If he had been awake at the time, the fox might have given more concern over the memory; analysing it for flaws, errors in what may very well have possibly been simply a digital recreation of a past. A phantom memory, one that had been written into his mind in order to disguise his own, real, true memories. But he knew that he wasn't awake, that he didn't need to concern himself with such things at that moment. That absence of fear gave him a sense of comfort, in and of itself. He could pretend, at that moment at least, that the memory he was experiencing was real enough to make him happy.

Instead, he allowed his dream to remind him of childhood winter.

The scent of the central heating and the warmth that it brought to him lulled him deeper into sleep, soon to be mixed with the taste of hot chocolate. He was certain that he could remember that now, a dash of hazelnut flavouring which his mother would add to the concoction, giving it just a little edge. It seemed odd to him that a false memory could possibly include so many elements that would catch on his senses. But Christmas, of course, was what so much of his dream eventually drew him to.

He was sitting in front of a television set, sipping a mug of hot hazelnut coco, watching an old film. His brother sat not far from him, across the sofa, his nose buried in a book. But Luke was watching the film, his attention rapt and eager. He wasn't sure what the title of the film was; only that it included a large, white-bearded man dressed very much like and acting with great enthusiasm to be Santa Claus.

As he watched the film, Luke became quite aware that he had seen this very same scene before. Of course, he thought, it's just a memory. But it seemed somehow unusual to him. The actors continued to play out their lines, moving across the screen, and with each moment Luke was certain that he knew exactly what would happen next; how the film would play out.

But, he thought, if these memories are not his own, how could he?

He stood up. With a motion, he reached out and grabbed the remote control. His brother leaned forward, giving a loud "Hey, I was watching that!" despite that he clearly had not been doing so. Luke paused for a moment, waiting. Thinking about what scene would happen next. It could be any scene; there was no way for him to tell, not truly, not if this memory wasn't his own, not if it had only been implanted into his mind in the last two weeks. He hadn't even thought about this film in those last two weeks. But yet, he knew that in the very next scene of the movie, Santa was speaking to one of his reindeer.

With a click, he turned on the screen again. Sure enough, Santa was speaking to one of his reindeer.

A thrill filled Luke, causing his entire body to want to leap up. The memory of his family was real - whatever had been done to him, it had not ripped away all of his past. Somehow, these few memories persisted. And if they did, then perhaps more could be recovered. He felt his dream world tumbling away as he opened his eyes, filled with eagerness. He was going to find Cybe, tell him, let him know that they could recover his memories, that they weren't completely lost. Surely the android would...

As the fox opened his eyes, he found that he was staring up into the barrel of a gun.

The figure holding the pistol; a large, heavy-set stallion, his body covered in military grade armour. And he was not alone. "Well" said Graves mark one, "that was easy."