Maniac’s Mayhem

A wide view of the city is shown as a voice on the holoscreen gives the breakdown: “Over three million credits worth of property damaged, over a hundred injured and according to our sources the hyena is still missing.”

Spark looking at the screen slowly turns around. “At least nobody died.”

Maniac gives her a smile “Ah so you are one of those overly positive glass half full kinda girls. to the point that even your brain is half full.”

(Alana)

Today had been interesting. Never in my biggest nightmares had I dreamed of taking care of a dependent. Luckily for me, Jenny was a rather independent girl; she managed to put her clothes on and brush her teeth all by herself. Which I did not know for sure if it was a big achievement for her age, but it definitely made me feel more comfortable with the arrangement.

That did, however, not mean that the current situation was that optimal either. As evident by the girl's hand on my leg shaking it to get my attention.

“Alana, can we keep working on the box, please?” The little girl was doing her best impression of an abandoned little puppy.

I sigh. “Like I told you a minute ago, I need to finish sending these invoices, which will take about 30 minutes. Then we can play around.”

The girl frowns, crumpling up her nose in an adorable way. As she sits back down on the floor. “Stupid invoices being so important.”

Even though I shared the sentiment, I did not want to give the girl more ammunition to pout over. “Well, they might be stupid, but they pay for the food and water. Unless you don’t want those things, I have to keep working.”

The frupled up kitten's eyes go wide as she looks back at the screen with a huff. She relents laying down completely on the floor. I smile and turn back to the screen, hopefully having bought myself at least two minutes.

My early estimates were off; however, the girl, seemingly more tired than I thought, had luckily for me fallen asleep, allowing me to finish up without any further interruptions. It was not that great for her spine, however, as the girl is all grumbly as I wake her up. Grumbling that does not last long on the promise of further dismantling of her box makes her all smiles again. I kind of wish I could also be that happy about simple things.

An hour of fiddling later, most of that time spent explaining proper safety to the little girl, we have all the panels off, revealing more of what the box holds inside. Which mostly consists of several rows of chips stacked next to each other, some of them shattered by the initial explosion, but most of them were still intact and as far as I could see. All of them were identical, with two exceptions: the board where they were all slit in and a board that was mounted on the side panels were different.

“What is it?” Jenny asks, looking curiously at the different circuits.

I look at the things for a few seconds before deciding that this is a perfect teaching opportunity. “Well, do you see how all of these are the same?”

Jenny nods. “Yeah, but these are broken.”

“I know,” I say with a smile. “But what reason do you have to have a multiple of something?”

“Because you like them just like French fries, more is better.” The girl says, throwing her arms in the air.

“I don't think that is quite right. Usually, in machines, you put more of the same thing in when it is better to have more. Can you think of some things where there are multiples in machines?”

The girl's eyes narrow as she stares at the machine, her mind working hard to find an answer. “Batteries,” the girl tentatively lets out after several seconds.

I smile. “Correct, that would help. Sadly, these are not batteries.”

The Jenny starts smiling wider as she looks back at the machine. “Are these those weird things, uhm processors…”

“While I do think these all have processors on them, I don't think that is their main purpose,” I say, patting the girl on top of her head.

“Then what are those?” the girl asks, pointing her finger middle finger at it instead of her missing pointer finger.

“I think there are memory modules storing what I assume is a crazy amount of data,” I say, looking over the cards.

“What do you think is on them?” Jenny asks, giving me a look that tells me she wants to go digging for treasure.

I shrug. “I don’t know, but we can try to find out.”

We spent the next few hours removing the damaged cards and making sure all the intact cards were still in perfect condition. When all the prep is done, I plug it into a small computer that does not have any networking ability in case the machine sends out a distress signal as soon as it goes online.

As soon as I open the info on the screen, I feel my stomach churn with disgust.

“What is wrong?” Jenny asks, looking at me with a slight amount of fear.

“It's a soul box,” I hiss out.

Jenny gives me a weird look. “What's that?”

I pause, my brain running over all the methods I could use to explain to a child the ethical problems of a soul box. “It can capture somebody's consciousness.”

Jenny turns her head to the side, still looking confused.

I sigh. “It’s difficult to explain, but it is like somebody taking your brain out of your body. You can still think, but no longer use or feel your body or any emotions; you are just a set of memories.”

“That sounds bad,” the kid concludes after a little while.

I chuckle. “That is one way to put it.”

“Why would someone do that to themself?” Jenny asks, probing the sides of the box with a small flathead.

“I don’t think it is usually something you do to yourself; it is something that is done to you.” I explain.

Jenny blinks her mind not comprehending why someone would do that. “Why?”

I shrug. “They are Samurai; the laws don’t apply to them, so they have no reason to be decent. So they will just do whatever they want,” I say, feeling that I dipped deeper into my beliefs that I would normally want to subject a kid to.

Jenny stays quiet after that, trying to drill a hole into the workbench with her stare. After about five minutes of silence, Jenny finally breaks it. “Alana? Did they hurt you too?”

My breath hitches slightly at that as memories of being bound to a bed flood my mind, the disgusting men on top of me. “Yeah,” I bite out, shaking my head to clear it.

“Is that why you wear?” Jenny points at her eyes.

I feel up at my own face, adjusting the dark googles slightly. “Yes.”

I feel two tiny arms wrap around me as the girl gives me a hug. I stay still for a moment, then I slowly pat the little girl's head. “Hey, Jenny, want to work on something more fun for a bit?”

Jenny looks up at me with a doubtful look. “Like what?”

I grab her hand, running my fingers over it, looking at the scarring and the two stubs that used to have fingers. “Some prosthetics so you can have five fingers again. I can’t promise it will look pretty, but it will definitely work.”

The little girl looks at her hand, studying it for a bit before looking back up. “Will it hurt?”

“It will probably sting a bit, but it should be rather painless.” I venture, this was not exactly an exact science, so results tended to vary greatly.

The child nods, putting on a determined face. “I can do it.”

I smiled, spending the next half hour adjusting small metal parts to make sure that the new fingers would not be too big or too small for the little girl. Then came coating all the joints in a good layer of lubricant and assembling everything.

Then came the hardest part: preparing Jenny’s hand. First, we cleaned it thoroughly with soap, then spraying some disinfected on the areas, and lastly some numbing spray. I carefully slotted the base of the fingers in place using some synth skin and flesh glue to attach it properly. When they were mostly dry, I activated the little program that would shoot small needles into jenny had that would connect to her neural network, allowing her to control her new fingers through her internal AUGs.

I sigh.

“Something's wrong?” Jenny asks, looking with fascination at her hand.

“Your AUGs are, let us say, antiquated, so they also need to be replaced. That is going to take some more time, and you will have to go to sleep for that.” I explain, mentally kicking myself for not checking that first. I had just been to excited at the idea of fixing someone that I did not think it through properly.

Jenny nods. “Okay, it's not that late, but I can go to sleep now.”

I smile. “Okay, if you are sure, we can do that.”

The girl nods, and I put the chair down in a lying position as I grab some knockout gas. The second operation is both smoother and a lot scarier. I did not enjoy messing around close to someone’s head; luckily, the basic frame for all AUGs was the same, allowing for easy upgrades. Which would be nice if they did not bring out a new, better module every three months. I chuckle to myself turns out that people are less accepting of buying the newer thing if it comes with an operation every time.

For now, I upgraded Jenny to one from last year that should hopefully last her until her next birthday at least. Once that is all done, I make sure to clean everything and sit down, scrolling the net as I wait for Jenny to wake up.

As I am doing that I find an article that makes me smile. Apparently, the Nachtwächter Netzwerk was having a public event in a few weeks to address some of the issues and concerns about the last few Samurai-related incidents. I kind of wanted to scoff at how stupid it was. 'Yeah, sorry, we blew up a bunch of stuff, and we try not to do it again.' Right, if anyone would ever believe that.

This event was just to pander to their ego, making it look like they were trying and all that. Something I would not care about if not for the fact that the talks will be held in the open, giving me the perfect opportunity to take out some of the more problematic people.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Jenny asks, groggily rubbing her eye.

“I just found my next job,” I say with a smile.