My Evil Ex Girlfriends

by Mia Archer

  She’d obviously put together some of the best stuff she could given the circumstances, and I noticed there was a healthy amount of alien tech mixed in.

  “Where have you been getting this stuff?” I asked as I ran my hand along one of the alien control boards.

  “Are you kidding?” Technomancer asked. “Those aliens might have overwhelming numbers, but they’re not indestructible. Their stuff has been going down all over the city, and there’s a hell of a black market that’s popped up.”

  “Interesting,” I said.

  One of the panels I’d been running my hand along glowed at my touch. I pulled my hand back, as though the thing might be able to bite me or something. I guess I’d been on the business end of this stuff often enough in the recent past that I wasn’t willing to risk the stuff harming me again.

  “Don’t worry,” Technomancer said. “They’re remarkably unsophisticated about security. It’s almost like the idea of cybersecurity never occurred to them as a culture or something.”

  “Sounds like the U.S. Government if you ask me,” I said with a grin.

  “Something like that,” Technomancer said.

  We shared a high five. If there was one thing that I could agree on with just about anyone, even if they were a fellow villain who made me a little uneasy both because of how attractive she was and because of how her powers could potentially cause trouble for yours truly, it was dunking on the U.S. government.

  “So now that you’re finally here, are you going to tell me what your big plan is?” Technomancer asked.

  I walked over to one of her screens that looked like a television. Tapped a couple of times on my wrist computer to try and take control, but that didn’t quite work.

  “CORVAC,” I said into the air. “Could you do me a solid and pull up SCNN footage of the Starlight City University campus please?”

  “Of course, mistress,” he said.

  There was a pause. Pauses never meant anything good with CORVAC. Pauses meant he was having trouble with something, and an AI as advanced as he was shouldn’t be having any sort of trouble with any computer system he found down here.

  “You know if you want me to…”

  “Give it a moment,” I said, holding up a hand.

  The biggest screen in the room flickered a couple of times. Some fuzz appeared on it, for all the world like we were looking at a television with bad reception from a few decades prior, and finally the Starlight City news feed appeared.

  “Thank you CORVAC,” I said.

  “But I was not able to do anything, mistress,” CORVAC said.

  I turned to look at Technomancer. She held up a remote that she wiggled in the air with a smile.

  “I thought you might want me to pull up the SCNN feed since your AI friend wasn’t able to get through my stuff,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re amateur hour tonight CORVAC. I want you to know this.”

  “My apologies mistress,” CORVAC said. “But I can assure you that whatever she has guarding her systems is quite formidable.”

  I shot her a dangerous look. “We’re going to have a talk about what you just did to my computer sometime soon, but for now we have to get down to planning.”

  “I’d expect nothing less,” she said with a thin smile.

  “Right,” I said, looking back to the SCNN feed and the giant dome that had appeared over the Applied Sciences Department. “There’s a weapon deep inside the Applied Sciences Department. Something Dr. Lana once used to steal Fialux’s powers. I’m assuming there are more copies of it in there, and we need to sneak in there and steal the thing before those aliens figure out a way to get in there and take it for themselves.”

  Silence settled over the room.

  “Are you kidding?” Nancy asked. “You want me to risk my people so you can break into a place that’s covered in an impenetrable forcefield that no one’s been able to break through so you can steal a gun that may or may not exist? That’s your plan?”

  “Sounds fucking awesome!” Technomancer said. “When do we get started?”

  I turned back to the screen and stared. If anything the mix of incredulity and enthusiasm was probably good for me. I was so used to all my plans going off without a hitch that I had to remind myself I wasn’t exactly batting a thousand, to be vulgar and borrow a saying that came from sports.

  “I didn’t say it was going to be easy,” I said. “All I know is the one chance we have at taking Failux out is in that building, and if we’re going to have a chance of saving the world we’re going to have to go in there and hope that thing is still there.”

  I turned to Technomancer and Nancy again. “I had a copy of that weapon in my lab and Fialux destroyed it. It was one of the only things she specifically went after in an otherwise very generalized rampage, which makes me think there was something about that weapon that was very special to her. Something that has her worried. That’s why I need you, Technomancer.”

  She sketched a little bow.

  “There’s going to be some nasty stuff in there. Nasty traps and computer systems that were left behind to keep people from doing exactly what we’re doing. There’s going to be the weapon itself. I need someone who knows what they’re doing with tech to help me with that,” I said. I took a deep breath. Sighed. “As much as I hate to admit this, I need help with something technology related.”

  It really did chap my ass to ask for something like that, but there was nothing for it. There was a vast alien army out there, a super powered woman who was even more powerful now than the last time we’d tangled. A time when she’d handed me my ass repeatedly in every fight we had up until the one where we stopped fighting and started making out.

  I needed help. I just hoped this would be enough, because if this didn’t work then it was time to start looking for another planet to go conquer somewhere else where they didn’t have superpowered beings.

  18

  Invasion of Privacy

  “So how do you propose we break into this place that’s impenetrable?” Nancy asked, crossing her arms. Though something about the way I was looking at her seemed to set her off.

  “Oh don’t look at me like that,” she said. “I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. You’re proposing breaking into one of the most high security locations in the city, a place that’s probably loaded down with booby traps to stop anyone from doing exactly what we’re doing. I think a healthy dose of skepticism is good here.”

  “Fair enough,” I said with a smile. “But the nice thing is I have an inside man. Someone who’s worked in that building very recently, and had access to most of the systems.”

  “Thank you for the pleasant introduction mistress,” CORVAC said, only this time his voice was coming out through the speakers in my suit.

  I’d originally put them there to amplify my voice if the circumstances ever called for it, but I guess he’d decided to take the opportunity to introduce himself to the world. I was thankful it wasn’t an introduction that involved a giant robot destroying the shit out of downtown Starlight City like the last time he’d decided to go out into the world.

  Technomancer blinked a couple of times, then clapped as she walked over and brushed a hand against my suit.

  I’ve got to admit. Having Technomancer brushing her hand against my suit was a little distracting. The girl was hot. There was no getting around it. And the way she grinned at me with an almost childlike glee at hearing CORVAC…

  “I knew it!” she said. “I found some of these old vacuum tubes in one of the sublevels in the warehouse district. It looked like someone had really beat the shit out of the guy with an EMP, but I was able to coax him back before I got chased away.”

  I blinked a couple of times. She was filling in gaps in a story that I’d never gotten a proper answer to. I mean Dr. Lana was great at copying other people’s work, but I didn’t exactly think she had it in her to bring CORVAC back from the dead given her limited technical skills.

 
; “Son of a bitch,” I breathed. “She went rummaging through the old tech parts of the warehouse district looking for old stuff she could repurpose. That’s how she found CORVAC.”

  “I am afraid I do not have much in the way of knowledge about what happened to me between you frying my circuits with an EMP and Dr. Lana finding me. I woke up to the good doctor copying me over to her systems in the Applied Sciences Department. I always assumed she was the one who facilitated the rescue.”

  “Like hell,” Technomancer said with a frown. “I was doing the same thing I always do. Rummaging through old stuff and seeing if there was anything cool I could use. You were like the coolest fucking thing I think I’ve ever found going urban exploring in those ruins, and some bitch came along and chased me away.”

  “You’re lucky she didn’t capture you and try to vivisect you to understand how your powers worked,” I muttered.

  I looked down. Technomancer still had her hand on my suit and she was stroking it in a way that was a little too personal for a couple of people who’d only done time together.

  Then again I guess there were a lot of people who’d done time together who’d probably gotten a little more intimate than they might’ve otherwise if they met outside the clink. The point was that stroking was very distracting because it was in a very sensitive place and goosebumps were starting to rise as I thought of some of the more interesting things the two of us could get up to.

  “Um, what are you doing?” I asked.

  “Sorry,” she said, blushing but not pulling her hand away. “It’s just that he’s so amazing. I want to know what evil genius put this guy together, because they deserve a handshake at the very least.”

  “They’re probably dead,” I said, thinking back to a time when I’d been doing much the same thing as Technomancer had the day she found him and resuscitated him. I wish I’d known there was someone who had a power that could revive dead AIs, because it would’ve made me go through his circuits and destroy them on a more physical level than an EMP if I’d known.

  Then again I suppose it’d all worked out for the best considering how in my corner CORVAC had been since I rescued him from Dr. Lana.

  “Mistress,” CORVAC said. “Something feels wrong here. Something is… My mind. My mind is going…”

  Panic and a touch of amusement ripped through me at the same time. Panic because CORVAC talking about his mind going was never good. Amusement because it would appear that even when he was on the way out he wasn’t above doing a little bit of quoting. Someone had obviously been into the Kubrick, though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised considering his fondness for entertainments that featured artificial intelligences rebelling against their meaty masters.

  “What are you doing to him?” I asked.

  “Nothing you won’t like,” Technomancer said.

  I reached out to grab her wrist. Only she pulled away before I could reach her. I tried to hit her several times over, but every time I tried to land a punch she managed to dodge. Which brought up the question of why I was even trying to hit her in the first place.

  I guess it was the terror of losing my partner in crime. I hated to admit this, but I did most of my best work when it was me and CORVAC working as a team. I’d been adrift in the brief window when it was just me and Fialux and no CORVAC to help me navigate the world.

  The thought of losing him again terrified me. I’d realized, too late, just what a bad idea it might be to let a woman who could manipulate technology simply by touching it get access to my computer systems. She could know everything by now if what she said about her powers was correct.

  “Seriously,” she said. “You need to calm down. I’m not hurting him.”

  “I feel very odd mistress,” CORVAC said. “There is something wrong with my systems. It’s almost like when I tried to put my consciousness in…”

  CORVAC trailed off, and again I was hit with an overwhelming sense of panic. An overwhelming sense that something terrible was happening to him. Maybe what she was doing wasn’t going to hurt him, but that didn’t change the fact that she could be trying to steal him away from me. I wasn’t sure if she could change an AI’s mind like that just by using her powers, but it also wasn’t a risk I wanted to take, damn it.

  “You’re going to tell me…”

  Only she didn’t have to tell me. She walked over to an orb on the other end of her lab that looked for all the world like a prop from the old Star Trek TV show. The one with Shatner and Nimoy and company. She smiled as she held it up, and it started to pulse with a faint green glow. A shade of green that matched the old monochrome monitor color of an Apple IIe almost perfectly.

  “See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  The orb pulsed a couple of times, as though whatever was inside that thing was getting used to the new digs, and the voice that pulsed out of it was very clearly CORVAC.

  “It would appear that something odd has happened to me, mistress,” he said.

  I was pissed off that this had happened, but at the same time I had to admit that it was a pretty cool special effect she’d put together for my megalomaniacal supercomputer friend. Like if he had an original series Star Trek vibe going for him before, it was really hitting me now.

  “Looks a little ‘60s inspired,” I muttered.

  “Totally,” Technomancer said with a grin that seemed only slightly unhinged instead of the totally unhinged I could usually expect from her. “Though hopefully he isn’t going to try and steal any of our bodies so he can make out with his wife again.”

  I turned to her and stared in astonishment that had nothing to do with my supercomputer getting put into this floating green orb thing and everything to do with surprise at where she was taking some of her references from.

  I found myself wondering what it would be like to be with someone who actually knew all the stuff I was always talking about rather than someone who merely seemed to tolerate it. Then I pushed those thoughts from my mind. My love life was the least of my concerns considering all the bullshit going down in the city.

  “What have you done to me?” CORVAC asked.

  “That’s a good question,” I said. “What the hell have you done to him? I sort of need him to help run most of my systems.”

  “I didn’t pull him away from any of that,” Technomancer said with a shrug. “He still lives in all the remote backup locations he’s put together. By the way, that old computer chugging along in the Antarctic station was a particular stroke of genius.”

  My eyes went wide. “I never knew about a station in Antarctica! How did you manage a backup there? The bandwidth isn’t all that great in a remote spot like that.”

  “I would ask that you do not go revealing any more personal information,” CORVAC said with the digital equivalent of a sniff. “There are some secrets that are best left unsaid between friends.”

  “Got it,” Technomancer said with a wink.

  “Now wait just one goddamn minute,” I said. “If you know where all his backups are then you need to tell me.”

  “And ruin the little game of cat and mouse the two of you play with each other?” Technomancer asked, again with that slightly unhinged look. “No. I think I’m going to let you keep on having your fun with each other, but you should know your boy here is completely sincere when he says he’s loyal to you.”

  “Of course I am sincere,” CORVAC said. “Why would you think otherwise?”

  “Because the last time she trusted you, you sort of abused that to try and take over the world, duh,” Technomancer said. “Anyway. Back to the orb. It’s just a vessel for him that’s a more convenient way for people to interact. Your little whispers in your earpiece there is good for you, but talking to your chest every time he wants to chat with everyone else could get a little awkward. Maybe a little fun too.”

  She said that last bit with a wink, and again I was reminded of my first impression of her when we met in SuperMax. That she was beautiful, but slightly unhinged. Sure that sl
ightly unhinged bit had ended up working in my favor, but I needed to remind myself that she was slightly unhinged lest I find myself on the wrong end of that personality quirk.

  “I am not sure what to think of your new companion,” CORVAC said. “Though from the elevated levels of…”

  “That’s enough CORVAC,” I quickly interjected, getting in between him and whatever awkward thing he was about to tell me about my elevated pulse and how I was starting to exhibit all the classical physiological signs of being attracted to someone.

  The last thing I needed was my sarcastic supercomputer getting involved in my love life. The last time he’d done something like that it’d involved him trying to kill me and Fialux because he had outdated ideas about whether or not villains and heroes could date, but that was almost preferable to what he was doing now with the whole revealing secret crushes thing.

  Though from the way Technomancer smiled I wasn’t sure how secret it was. She had that tech whisperer thing going for her, after all, and it would appear that some of that involved getting access to some of CORVAC’s memory banks while she was communing with him to put him in that green glowing ball thingy.

  “Right,” I said, smacking my hands together and trying to ignore the sudden awkward moment. “Now if you all don’t mind I think it’s time we get down to business. CORVAC, you know quite a bit about the Applied Sciences Department, so what can you tell us about what to expect?”

  We got into the planning from that point on, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that every once in awhile Technomancer was turning and looking at me with a slight smile. A slight unreadable expression that said she knew everything I was trying to hide from her. All the crazy attraction that was boiling inside me as I thought about how long it’d been since I’d been with someone and how much it sucked that my ex-girlfriend was trying to destroy me and take the city with her.

  One thing at a time though. If I could just get my hands on that gun then it would go a long way towards getting her back to normal. I hoped.