Maniac’s Mayhem

“What do you mean our experiments are unethical without us? These people would just waste away in the under city, and now they get to contribute to society while getting housed and fed at the same time. If anything, it’s like they are ripping us off.”

“But they are children?”

-- Recording recovered from a broken flash drive found on a burned and mangled corpse.

It stays quiet for a bit, and by the girls' confused looks, I decided that more explanation about the current circumstance is probably important.

“It's complicated and such, but basically, we are three people all together in one body.” I sigh. “Crow, can you please explain?”

“Yes, we have what most mind doctors would commonly call dissociative identity disorder. It is a protective mechanism where the brain sections off certain parts of itself to protect from trauma, creating unique individuals or, in other words, personalities.” Crow explains without a hint of excitement.

Claire slowly nods. “I guess that makes sense. You do act like a different person with the mask on. So the fact that you most likely were a different person at those times makes sense.”

“Wait, mask? So, you are Maniac?” Cierra asks, looking really confused

I look between her and Maniac. “No, I am not. I think the more accurate term would be that I am also a samurai, just like Maniac.”

Magenta looks back and forth between all of our forms and sighs. “Just when I thought I had a handle on your brand of crazy, you add this to it.”

“I m not crazy. That's Maniac's whole thing.” I say, gesturing at my twin.

“I resent that. You're just as crazy as I am. The whole assassination thing was your idea.” Maniac answers with a frown.

“Data suggest that both of you are in desperate need of mental healthcare, so Maniac is right,” Crow adds to the pile.

I throw my hands up to the sky “Fine, we are both crazy. Anyway there are two of us now, or we split in two, I think that is still somewhat important to discuss.” I say as I walk up to the couch and sit down next to Claire.

To my amusement, Maniac decides to do the same and sit on Claire's other side, sandwiching her between the both of us. By the blush on Claire's face, she is enjoying this treatment as well, so I scoot in a bit closer to her.

“What important details do we still need to discuss?” Cierra asks. “I mean, I get that this is complicated, and I still don’t think I fully understand it myself, but to truly get a grasp, I will need some time to digest and observe it.”

“I think they are still worried about the dating aspect of the relationship.” Crow supplies.

“Yeah, that.” I confirm, “You all, well, besides Magenta, so the two of you, agreed to date us back when that just meant one person, or at least we thought that we were singular, so now that there are two of us, those feelings might change.”

“I guess that could be true,” Claire says, and I feel myself deflate slightly, “but we won’t know that unless we continue the relationship. Also, and probably more importantly, we fell in love with the combination of you all together, so it is unlikely anything will change. Right?” Claire finishes, looking at Cierra, who is staring off into space.

“Sorry, what?” Cierra says when she snaps out of it.

Maniac just giggles. “What were you thinking about? Going by your blush, it couldn't have been anything family-friendly.”

“Uh, just, you know, having both a shy Evelin and a domineering one sounds nice,” Cierra answers in a shy tone.

Maniac burst out laughing. “Don’t worry, princess, I will make all those dirty dreams of yours come true.”

“I'm not that sure about Crow, though,” Claire admits.

“I would prefer to be kept out of any situation that involves the exchange of bodily fluids.” Crow drops into the conversation.

“But you don’t mind if we mess around with one of the other two?” Cierra asks.

“Go right ahead,” Crow encourages her.

Cierra swallows hard, but before she can answer, Magenta jumps in. “The flirting can wait till later. First, I want to know exactly what happened.”

“Sure, sure, story time!” Maniac shouts as she reaches out an arm to drag Cierra onto her lap.

“That's fair.” I acknowledge. "It all started with this mission. It sounded basic at first…”

It takes me about an hour and some change to go over all the events that have happened, from my disappearing into Zurich to getting out and finding my family. Both Maniac and Crow jump in from time to time, adding their own details to the series of events.

“That still leaves one big question,” Magenta says after I finish our story.

“Just one? I have about five,” Maniac says from her spot, leaning against Claire with Cierra's head on her lap.

“I have 34 questions, but only four of those I would consider major questions,” Crow adds onto that.

“Right, that's something to look at. Magenta, what is your question?” I ask, looking at the girl.

“Well, who built the shield?” she says with a shrug.

“My guess would be whoever the Samurai was whose tomb got raided. We saw a lot more samurai tech than just the shield, right?”

“That would be Mountain Shepherd, a samurai who liked to tame wild animals.”

“Explains the gene editing and the control chips. What do you think?”

I turn to Maniac to see if she has any input, but I only find her staring at Crow's drone body.

I hear Cierra chuckle. "You two really are the same sometimes. Both of you are entranced by technology."

Maniac blinks, then turns. "I guess so. I mean, I don't know the specifics, but it feels like we are kind of split. We were the same person, and then we were not, so I remember sitting down and disassembling machinery for fun."

"What about Crow, then? She came later, right?" Claire asks.

Maniac nods. "I think it’s a bit different. Crow?"

"I have no real memories, just some vague images of machinery and factories." the drone replies.

"That sounds more like she split off from your AI than from you." Cierra says with a chuckle.

I pause. "Lyssa, is that possible?"

It is rather unlikely for such a thing to happen. My AI informs us using the speaker system.

"Unlikely, not impossible?" I ask, sweat forming at the back of my neck.

When Lyssa digitised your brain, a photon could have snuck through and changed the code, leaving an imprint of Lyssa in your digital brain. The chances of such an event occurring are about one in one trillion, so Lyssa believes the possibility is unlikely. It is more likely that Crow is formed as a defence mechanism against emotional distress.

Everyone stays quiet for a while until Magenta speaks first. "Our AI can impregnate us?"

Technically, Lyssa would be impregnating the brain instead of the womb, so Lyssa believes that it is not the same.

"Huh, wait. Does that mean that you could do it right now if you wanted to? " I ask, feeling curious.

"What?" Maniac shouts out, "You are not seriously considering letting her fuck our brain out. Crow, help me out here?"

"Actually, I think it could be rather beneficial to us, having the child of a protector AI would give us new insight," Crow says in the same monotone.

"No, not happening!" Cierra suddenly shouts out, "Her first child is going to be with me!"

Crows manages to speak up before Maniac, and I manage to get past that statement. "I understand, then we can have Lyssa do it after you have your first child."

Maniac and I exchange a look. “Still don’t like the idea,” Maniac says. “It is not like that child would have access to the Samurai database or anything, so most likely, she will be a more unhinged Crow.”

“And you don’t want that?” Magenta asks with a smirk.

“Shut up, Glowstick. If you like the idea so much, why don’t you have your AI do it?” Maniac bites back.

Magenta mimes locking her lips and throwing away the key.

“Anyway, now that we have that weird thought to haunt our nightmares from now on, let's deal with my questions, including who built the death trap. I’d like to know who placed it. Also, why? And how? Since this all required a lot of planning.” Maniac says, looking smug.

“That is four.” Cierra points out, “You said there were five questions.”

“Ooh, did it achieve what they wanted, or did we stop it?” she adds on.

“That is a good one. Why do it in the first place? Because I can’t see any benefits to it besides maybe gathering all the samurai in one place,” Cierra says.

“What if that was the point? Gather a bunch of samurai together, then drop the city into an antithesis nest,” Magenta says.

“Sounds a bit unreliable, like, Zurich is already cleared. Even if they did it at a better time, it still wouldn't have a major impact.” Claire adds.

“What if that wasn't the point of dropping it? What if it was to hide evidence?” I suggest.

“What do you mean?” Cierra asks.

“Well, we know they found samurai tech. Some of it isn't that good, for lack of a better word. So you need a place to experiment with it, but if any Samurai finds out, you would be in deep shit, so you make sure you can drop the entire thing into a hostile zone so that the Samurai would be distracted and all evidence connecting the experiments to you are gone.” The more I explain, the more excited I get about my possible theory.

“But why do it in Zurich?” Claire asks.

“Zurich is deemed unreliable by most companies” Cierra informs her “With the amount of flooding in the area plus the high taxation, you only put stuff there you don’t mind losing or want to sell there. All the important stuff is put in the surrounding countries.”

“So you are saying that the disaster duo’s theory might be, right?” Magenta asks.

“Hey!” Maniac shouts.

“There are three of us,” I point out.

Magenta sighs, “Terrible triplets then.”

“Might as well add Lyssa to the mix and call them the chaos quartet,” Claire adds with a giggle.

I give her the side eye, “I thought you were on our side.”

Claire just sticks her tongue out. “I am, but it is fun to mess with you.”

“You’re a terrible girlfriend,” I say with a smile.

“Disagree!” Maniac and Cierra shout out in tandem, and we all burst out laughing.

After the laughing dies down a bit, Cierra speaks up. “So, when do you leave again?” ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ novelFɪre.net

I lean over and give her a kiss. "We don’t have plans to leave again, so, with some luck, sometime next year. But we still have a lot of things to do.”

“Yeah, we promised Ashley and her crew that we would take care of them, so we should probably pick them up.” Maniac adds.

“Then there is a bunch of admin. Finding places for people to stay, and assigning jobs to the people that came here to work.” I continue.

“You know I can do most of that,” Cierra says.

Maniac almost jumps up. “You would do that for us?”

“Yeah, why not? I am doing a bunch of admin for PsyCo already, so a little more can’t hurt.” She says with a smile.

Maniac leans down, kissing Cierra on the lips, making her blush. "Thank you, you’re the best!” To punctuate the statement, she gives her another kiss

“Then I guess that only leaves settling in our family,” I say, to continue on.

“Will that take long?” Claire asks.

“I'm not sure. They seem pretty banged up. Now, the adrenaline is still pumping, but when that runs out, they might crash, so I want to ensure they feel safe and comfortable.” I say, as I lean in closer to Claire.

We continue this meeting like that for a while longer. Just messing around, and slowly getting through all the things we needed to discuss, just enjoying the closeness that we missed for such a long time.