Mark 2.0: Book 4: Love

by Prax Venter

  “You might be the last of your kind,” she said softly as she reached out to Angel. “No more delaying your upgrades.”

  With that said, she turned from the epic cafeteria to step onto Sasha’s line, and the group silently pursued their own contemplations as they followed her through the immaculate, sprawling moon base. After the second hour of endless corridors, offices, foyers, meeting halls, barracks, and laboratories… Angel hovered up close to match their Druid’s determined speed.

  “Mistress Jezebel,” she began, “I’ve been thinking. Some of the structural component data we’ve recovered from Orb Hub combined with what I can scan, and vaguely recall, has led me to surmise that the three races utilized different amounts of this imbued meta material in their technology. I believe the Blazar used it the least and that is why none of their technology survived, the Lagomorph partially utilized it, and the Time Walkers infused nigh-everything with it. What are your thoughts?”

  “Intriguing…” Jezebel said, and Mark could tell it was a brilliant academic approach to get her feeling like herself. He turned to look out a window of the gigantic corridor they currently navigated and scanned the vast sea of powdered regolith dunes eventually fading into the blackness of space beyond. The ridiculously long tube they were moving through was not meant to be traveled by foot. It appeared safe, but they were in the middle of a thin bridge between different sections and it would take them about another hour just to cross it. If what he saw out the window was anything like the atmosphere of the real moon, they would be screwed if a stray rock even cracked this mile-long pane of glass.

  As they moved through the exposed tube, Jezebel and Angel continued discussing wavelength saturation of omega-level ether strands, and Mark tuned out. Then they started getting into interesting concepts like the meta metal they designed by fusing magic and tech potentially being invisible to anything outside of the Crystal Heart game world.

  That’s when Sasha grew bored enough to jump in.

  “Okay, wait. We found sweet-titted Lagomorphs all over, and two flavors of Blazar; Original and Extra Oral.” She paused to indicate the emptiness around them. “Why no Time Walkers?”

  Jezebel stopped following the dotted line. “I told you this already. I erased them when I ran a-”

  “Bullshit,” Sasha said, her wings snapping outward slightly. “Between everyone here, I’m probably the best-suited to understand the concept of a real-world search and replace function, Jezzy Bear. I think you are deliberately missing another variable involved because you want to feel sad. I know self-torment when I see it.”

  The freckle-splattered satyr’s brows came down as everyone felt the tension building between them. Sasha was mad at Jezebel’s despair directly, and she felt the overwhelming need to fight it. Even if it were the abstract concept of epic regret, she wanted to kick the shit out of whatever was hurting the AI she’d come to love on par with her primary user. The impending argument defused immediately as the two bonded women moved in to hug each other fiercely instead.

  Abby wove a tentacle around Angel’s fingers as the little bot turned her pixel eyes on Mark. He tried to mentally will her the message of “almost”. She would hopefully soon understand these instant, pure-hearted conversations after augmenting her connection with his Enthralled abyssal horror.

  He watched Jezebel’s kind, emerald eyes again pool with tears as she let Sasha’s furious support cradle her, and he couldn’t help his mind from spinning over the concept that whole universes teeming with individual life were wiped out for him. All of this for a single copy of a human mind.

  Then, everything that was Jezebel came to a dead stop. She snapped her gold-flecked irises to focus deep into his, and he saw a primal forest and the pile of mental rocks she’d built to dam up all thoughts flowing toward the concept of ‘Cataclysm’. Sasha had been kicking leaks in that mental barrier, and now her Lover’s wandering thoughts seemed to obliterate it.

  “Angel,” Jezebel said, pushing the succubus to arm’s length yet retaining a death grip on her shoulders.

  “Yes?”

  Jezebel kept her focus locked on Mark as her mind flooded with the familiar complex patterns he knew and loved. “Do you happen to have any memory fragments in your core regarding the Time Walkers merging with their technology. Or anything about storing biological scans into their devices?”

  “I- I know enough to know that I am missing vast amounts of information. Perhaps if we explore more of the facilities, I will be able to connect more fragmented data structures.”

  “A copy,” Abby said. “You believe they created copies like our Mark?”

  Jezebel didn’t answer and instead turned to face Sasha then dove in for a passionate kiss. Mark watched her spade tail stick straight up, then start slowly weaving as she started kissing back.

  Jezebel pulled away and flashed her friend a sweet smile. “What I believe is that Sasha is smarter than she looks.”

  The sex demon’s tail drooped. “Hey…”

  Their Druid shifted into a centaur, then said, “Mark, Sasha, get on. Angel, grab your Mistress. We move.”

  “Now we’re talking!” Mark cheered as he vaulted up into her strong back end. Sasha was right behind him and although her navigation line pulsed indignantly from broken contact, its starting point still moved along on the smooth metal plating directly below her hooves.

  After they started eating up empty tunnel at about ten times their walking speed, Pegasus-Jez laid out her thoughts.

  “What I now realize, thanks to Sasha, is that there is a chance to restore living entities of this ancient race once I regain access to my hardware. That chance and quality of success both rise exponentially if I can get my fingers into large piles of data to work from. And, yes-” She turned from the empty corridor ahead to the green woman with flowing black hair currently wrapped around a Lunar Power Droid. “If they prepared for the end of days, there is a chance they tried to digitize their memories too. Now that I am really thinking about it as I would before the Upgrade installed emotional biases… who knows. There are a few options, but all of them still hinge on regaining control.”

  The glow of Jezebel’s wings began to sting his good eye as she hurtled them forward and he felt Sasha’s heavy breasts push into his back as she held on tighter. At this speed, it wasn’t long before the next section of this interconnected complex grew to fill their vision. A black cube wedged into the lip of a crater. By the angle of the floor, he could tell they were heading underground.

  “Hey, why is the gravity still the same?” Mark asked as they all moved into its shadow.

  Jezebel slowed. “That, I don’t know. I think because we are technically still in a fantasy game.”

  Angel flipped on her chest lamp as she hovered into the twenty-foot opening yawning before them. Immense space of this area was dominated by glass tubes connected to the floor and ceiling by glowing alien technology. As always, size was up in the air, but there was no denying the scope of what he was seeing. Weak bolts of magic-infused electricity danced around the inside of skyscraper-sized vacuum tubes that numbered in the thousands.

  “Well, they were up to something alright,” Mark said.

  “I am 96% certain this is a battery,” Angel said. “I am pleased they still hold a charge. If so, this is connected to the exact power source I thought would explode on Lagos if we fucked around.”

  “The line continues there,” Abby said, and everyone moved as one, banking left. The group flew past four of the enormous tubes and the line turned back left again and down a glass ramp that spiraled downward.

  They all hovered down the center as the line looped around and around, taking them down six levels, then into another long corridor.

  “I don’t think we’re supposed to be back here,” Sasha said as Jezebel’s armored centaur body and its riders almost didn’t fit through the exposed pipes and bizarre technomagic components, but walking would slow them down, so they adjusted to make it work.


  “Obey the line,” Mark commanded with a smirk and Sasha groaned behind him. She did not trust her new ability to begin with and used it reluctantly after almost getting him killed.

  “Because I’m not really the one telling us where to go, is why,” she whispered, her breath hot in his ear. She did have a point. This line did seem to have… feelings of its own. But in the context of the game world, it felt more like a force of nature than a sentient line.

  Despite her misgivings, the line safely led them out under the thin glass sheet that spanned the crater they’d approached earlier. Mark was never really bothered by claustrophobia or agoraphobia, but the single, unbroken pane of (what couldn’t possibly be) glass that covered over a half mile of workstations made sweat stand out on his brow. The endless cold abyss beyond the curved edges of the impact crater threatened to swallow him as a speck of dust falling into the ocean. Mark closed his dangling jaw.

  If he kept his eyes focused on ground level, the feeling passed quickly, and he discovered rows and rows of the same three machines arranged endlessly before them- one of which was obviously fitted with a Lunar Power Droid-shaped alcove. Yet Sasha’s navigation line ended at one of the more science-fiction-styled stations.

  Mark couldn’t help but gawk at its absolute alien nature and alluring natural beauty.

  “The Lagomorph tech is like spaceship-advanced, but the Time Walker stuff is like… end-of-time-kind of advanced.”

  “We are where I awoke,” Angel said, hovering forward, her tapered metal shins glowing as she displaced gravity around her. “This expanse of possibility above is the first image to imprint on my… mind.”

  “It is incredible,” Jezebel said.

  “How does this work,” Abby said, coiling her tentacles around the cluster of glowing crystal control rods. She was smart enough to not move any, though.

  “That is very similar to a Lagomorph auto crafter,” Angel said and then moved over to the third and strangest machine. “This is a component synchronizer. Mistress, we both will need to undergo a brief scan for synchronicity. Then, once we have the entangled component…” She finally pointed at the freestanding wall of alien tech with the bot-shaped alcove. “This is a Lunar Power Droid Station where I will dock and safely install the final component. I used to build… me. Other power droids. I would awaken them and guide them on their first day of perception. Then…”

  “We will find out together if you want to know,” Jezebel said, and it was a promise. “But let’s make you part of the family before we do anything else.”

  Angel turned to her. “I would like that.”

  They watched their droid interact with the strange-colored crystal controls and the bowl-shaped machine began rotating as it stitched a glowing patch of reality together with invisible sewing needles. When the hollow basin started slowing down, she reached into the central chamber and gently scooped a still-glowing square of small chainmail links.

  The bot then carried it over to the synchronicity machine. She bade her Mistress stand on one side while she stood on another and gave Jezebel instructions, and both Angel and Abby gazed into each other’s eyes as the machine began to hum. A light flashed into the mesh, a loud thump in the floor echoed through the expansive space, and then Angel said they could step away from the small blue stone each had pressed to their foreheads.

  Angel removed what now looked more like a magic-tech circuit board connected to a woven metal net pulsing with excited bits of trapped magic. She turned to the LPD Station to load it and everyone discovered Salivis the goddess of Oral Sex now standing between her and the machine.

  “Surprise,” she said to Abby and then cast her warm smile over to Angel.

  “Goddess?” Angel said and Abby moved up close to her bonded bot, her tentacles balling with excitement.

  “The pair of you have spent a considerable amount of time practicing your devotions on each other in my name since my promise under the Blazar hoard … a considerable amount of time.”

  “I enjoy Angel’s tireless lips and tongue,” Abby said, nodding eagerly. “Her moistness and temperature control, pressure and suction, all of her tactically tuned talents total climax after climax. I will continue to serve as an endless conduit of pleasure as long as we remain under the purview of your administration, even after any powers are granted or other deserving rewards have been distributed.”

  “Indeed.” Salivis smiled as she nodded to the upgrade Angel still held carefully clutched between her metal fingers. “I reward my loyal devotees, power for power. Let it never be forgotten that Salivis gives as good as she receives.”

  A solid burst of impossible color washed over reality, and Mark’s magic eye picked up multiple blurred Crystal Heart deities spinning around the group before it was over, and everything was still once again.

  “This Remote User Interface component is now Relic-Tier,” Salivis said. “You will find it is now capable of more than telepathic communication.”

  She winked once to Mark before vanishing from sight.

  Angel stood dumbfounded as everyone stared at the glittering bit of future tech she held in her hand. The thing absolutely throbbed with complex mixed energy from several different aspects of magic.

  “Well?” Sasha said. “Shove it in already!”

  “I am eager for the promised deeper connection,” Abby said, her yellow eyes moving from the invaluable object up to her bonded bot’s pixel eyes.

  Angel gingerly placed the upgraded upgrade in a slot on the machine and then backed herself into the small humanoid alcove. The LPD Station either knew what to do or she was able to control it when she interfaced, but Mark was not prepared for Angel’s eyes to fade out and her tight metal body to open like a blooming flower.

  She didn’t broadcast any pain or discomfort as she separated into at least thirty discrete parts- and only about a third of that was chest armor. He didn’t like seeing her like this, yet Abby was mesmerized and had to force herself not to start exploring Angel’s exposed cavities while she was undergoing surgery.

  It didn’t last long. A robotic claw made of black metal shaped like cooled candle wax detached from the frame and then unceremoniously maneuvered her new component from the place it sat down near what appeared to be her a purple throbbing heart. Her engine, maybe. The arm screeched out four violent bursts of channeled power to weld it in place. Then, all her hovering bits fell back where they belong, and Angel’s expressive pixel eyes came blinking back to full strength.

  Mark immediately felt her buzzing, probing mind peeking into their interconnected bond and couldn’t help but start grinning.

  “Welcome home, Angel.”

  Her cherry-red mouth dropped open as she looked around the team, feeling everything through Abby. It was as if they’d hacked the system to get him a fourth Enthralled.

  Angel’s mind turned inward and tried to access what new functionality was added- and her signal immediately jumped from melting heart of joy to live wire of disbelief. Despite being connected to her on a much deeper level, they were all having trouble processing what she was trying to convey over the sheer volume of data she was sending.

  “Slow down,” Mark said, trying to calm her.

  “Ahh,” Angel grunted in a cute digitally tinged voice, then grabbed Abby’s shoulder and said, “Dimensional folding… I’m armor… with- I have to just show you, Mistress!”

  The frantic droid embraced her bonded Mistress tight- a little too tight, and Mark grew immediately concerned. If he hadn’t been connected to their hearts while Angel somehow stepped inside and turned around within Abby’s body, he might have tried to interfere. Sections of the android’s body shifted or expanded as vibrant bursts of ethereal energies popped all around them.

  In seconds, Abby stood before them completely covered from boots to tentacle in… Angel.

  “I cannot express my elation,” Abby’s mouth said where Angel’s used to be, and he couldn’t help but notice she was about an inch higher. To make thi
ngs further from feeling normal, Angel’s white pixelated eyes still displayed on the smooth black surface over Abby’s face.

  “Little one?” Sasha said, creeping forward to cautiously peek inside.

  “We are both here,” they said in unison with Angel’s voice coming from a speaker in Abby’s chest plate.

  “I am… equipping Angel,” Abby said on her own, reaching one of her ropy appendages out to coil around Sasha’s waist. The whole tentacle was covered in tiny gray hexagonal shapes that flexed as she moved with no apparent restriction in her movement. “I can perceive so much more.”

  The sensation of Abby’s and Angel’s minds working in tandem within their collective telepathic link continued to pump out too much data, but with Abby’s experience and mental discipline, they worked together to bring the overflow under control.

  The first bit they clearly conveyed was that they were both fine. Better than fine. Yes, they were still themselves. Yes, they could come apart and reconnect at will. Yes, Abby could still cast spells. In fact, she could now cast while moving and enjoyed other synergies that shortened all her cooldowns slightly and buffed spell damage.

  “And yes,” Abby said out loud, “I can fly.”

  The giddy abyssal horror wrapped both armored tentacles around her new kickass Angel Suit, then flashed a sawtooth grin up at the blackness before her full helmet slid closed and she launched upward through what Mark had now realized was not glass, but only a bluish forcefield.

  She soared overhead up into the stars, spinning and swooping around in tight arcs and the unfettered freedom blaring from Abby’s mind was matched only by her bonded bot’s elation with sharing such unimagined intimacy with her Mistress.

  “Seeing Angel with feet is weird,” Sasha said after about a minute and a half of watching the pair loop around over the moon base.