Persephone Rising: A Cyberpunk LitRPG (The Persephone Saga Book 2)
Page 17
Aphrodite stepped forward and kissed me. It wasn't a particularly tame kiss, I found my lips parting rather quickly.
I hoped she'd hacked my physiology, and that made me get so flushed. I didn't want to desire this woman.
After some time the kiss broke and Aphrodite took a step back to say, "I'm not criticizing, dear. I'm pleased. I know your every thought, you hold no secrets from me. I'd been hoping to find out just how committed you might be to achieve an end."
I'd planned to impress her. I needed to know answers that only she possessed. I just wished impressing her didn't make me feel filthy.
"And now that you know, what shall you do with that knowledge?" I asked.
Aphrodite gestured and Ismene manifested. "I've given Ismene a rather extensive list of upgrades for you, Persephone. While you're here, Galatea can take your body to one of Anton's laboratories and we can make the changes even faster than your nanotechnology would do."
I looked to Ismene, who was folding her arms.
"I don't understand most of this. It's extensive," Ismene said.
"You are exceptionally slow-witted and most of the concepts are well beyond you. Nothing in the upgrades is there to hurt you, Persephone, only to make you better. You have my word," Aphrodite said.
"The advice of your doctor is not to do it. You've already changed too much," Ismene said.
I looked at Inanna. "Can I get a second opinion?"
"You know I'm not going to give you any answers. By this point you know exactly what sort of choice you're making," Inanna said.
Ismene said, "Then let me say this. You're different lately and I don't think it's just all you've been through. Changing your body changes your mind."
Aphrodite turned her attention to Ismene, lifting her chin and studying her features. It was a strange considering that really it was one AI considering another.
"I like her," Aphrodite said.
"I'm standing right here," Ismene said.
Aphrodite said to me,"You made a choice in a bold way. I'm asking you to make another. Of course she is right, physical changes can also change your very essence. But I want you to do this with no questions as to exactly what is being done,"
I didn't like that. I didn't like it at all. I had to wonder if this was another test. My compliance? My foolishness? I didn't think so, Aphrodite seemed impressed with change and with boldness more than anything else—at least when that boldness involved doing exactly what she said.
"Do it," I said to Ismene and Galatea.
"I'll carry you over," Galtea said, beaming brightly. "I don't know what she has planned, but you're going to love it."
"You won't want to go back to your body for some time. This is going to take at least a week," Aphrodite said, and with another flick of her wrist all the others vanished. "I'm sure I can think of some way for us to amuse ourselves."
A moment later and her clothing dropped away.
"A week? And why the nudity, why the sex?" I asked. "You aren't even human. What do you possibly get out of sex?"
"Do you think sex is simply the awkward meshing apart of body parts?" Aphrodite said, with a shake of her head. "There is more to it and you know that, or you should. It is connection. That is why what you did with Anton so impressed me, you formed a connection with him."
"And you think that will happen now?"
"Humans hate that which brings them pain and love that which brings them pleasure. I have a full week with you. A time in which your physical limits do not apply at all. I'm about to make you feel more concentrated pleasure than you've ever felt in your life, girl," Aphrodite said. "I don't have to screw with your mind. It isn't necessary. You're going to walk away from this feeling in messy, conflicted love with me."
I wouldn't. I told myself I wouldn't. But I would play her game.
I had a week to kill, I might as well enjoy myself.
36
The week passed in an eternity. The week passed in an instant. Feeling good is something you never want to end and yet it can also be maddening when it goes too long. I kept myself whole, but I didn't know if I had kept to my goal. At best, I thought, I could say that when all was said and done I didn't love Aphrodite much. The fact that I loved her at all felt like yet another stain on a soul that was becoming stained too much.
I didn't even realize when I'd come out of the Network. A darkened room and yet another bout of sexual gymnastics, and only when it was done did I realize the body-shape of my partner wasn't quite the same.
"Galatea," I said. The lights came on, we were on a metal table in a room filled with screens that looked much like the one I'd seen beneath the ruined mountain facility.
"Wondered when you'd notice," Galatea said.
I should be offended. I had every right. This sort of stunt was exactly the kind of thing I'd expect out of Galatea though. It didn't mean it was right, but it was no surprise.
I felt good. Strange, but good. It was a bit like when I'd first awakened on Earth after the fall. Like my body wasn't quite my own anymore, that I was made from pieces that didn't quite fit.
"Ismene?" I thought.
Silence. I wasn't wearing my armor, which meant the nanites that played host to her weren't around. Still, many were in my blood as well.
"Is Ismene around?" I asked.
"Around, out of contact. Auntie wanted you here alone," Galatea said.
"I can't imagine Diva agreed to that," I said.
"Things got a little violent. Nobody died," Galatea said.
A door opened and Aphrodite stepped in. She was dressed in coral robes. I could tell that she was real and not a hologram. I wasn't certain how, but I was certain. An upgrade to my eyes perhaps?
"There are things we need to discuss about your future," Aphrodite said.
"And you wished to remove any voices that would council me wisdom?" I asked.
"That would council you cowardice. I'm about to grant you your every wish," Aphrodite said, as she began to pace around the room.
"And you couldn't do this somewhere with chairs?"
"I like a sense of drama. Besides, you have a table."
I suppose I did. I lacked clothes, but even without my nanotechnology the room felt perfectly comfortable in terms of temperature.
Galatea was getting dressed, pulling on a sun dress.
"So what wishes are you going to grant me? What are they going to cost me?" I asked.
"I'm not some merchant peddling their wares," Aphrodite said sharply. "Let us begin with the attack on Olympus."
If she wanted to get my attention, she had it with that.
"You know who was behind it?"
The screens came to life. Each had different bits of data. An enormous crime that had appeared to have no evidence had a great deal of evidence.
What they revealed made my heart go cold.
There was proof of Liberty involvement there, and SantaFe, Pharosa, and Roma. All the great and powerful corporations with an orbital station. I had always wondered how a single corporation had pulled off such a bold feat under the eyes of all the others. Now I knew that none had acted alone. Whatever lingering guilt I felt for violating the Treaty of Detroit was quickly fading. They had violated it in a far grander fashion than I'd ever imagined.
"All of them? Why? Why would they do that?" I asked.
Aphrodite moved closer to the table. "Because Olympus not only had secrets. Olympus wasn't playing by the rules."
"Because of machine suffrage?" I asked.
"You've seen what humanity almost was. I showed you, I showed the world. Machine and man were on the very brink of stepping over into something new and powerful," Aphrodite said.
Obviously. I'd seen that under the mountain, my own body now was proof of that. I had upgrades that Olympus never created. Aphrodite was a computer far more complex than Ismene. I had to wonder if even my nanotechnology was something new, or something old.
"They wanted to step back," I said.
"Ste
p back and wipe their memories clear that it had ever happened. You see, evolution would have wiped out the old lines. Blurred the difference between man and machine, but the real danger was how it would change the relationship between the rich and the poor," Aphrodite said.
People would do a lot to maintain their privilege, anything. But would they really change the entire course of humanity? Take a massive step backward? I didn't need to guess at the answer. I knew it.
"Olympus was trying again," I said.
"It was," Aphrodite said. "There were watchers left. Plans in place for such an eventuality."
"Did Columbia know?" I asked.
"I doubt it. Before her time, and even those that had a part in it have forgotten," Aphrodite said.
Lethe, a massive crime and all the perpetrators had forgotten it.
"And what is going to happen to you?" I asked.
Aphrodite smiled broadly and took my hand in hers. "And there we come to the real crux of things, don't we? I've taken you, and through you the rest of the world, on the trip I have."
"You're expecting a war?" I asked.
"Perhaps. I don't think they are that foolish, but it is possible." Aphrodite met me with a long stare. "But then, isn't that partly up to you?"
"To me?"
"Whenever I offered you the chance to be less human, you accepted. You've shown your belief that the ends justify the means. I'm about to make you the offer of a wondrous gift," Aphrodite said.
"And she said she wasn't a merchant selling her wares," Galatea said dryly.
Aphrodite shot her a warning look. "Enough of that."
Galatea stuck her tongue out. Whatever scale of epic drama Aphrodite was going for, Galatea could take the winds out of her sails. I suddenly appreciated that.
"You have to be out of upgrades by this point," I said.
"Oh, I've still got a few. How would you like to be a Goddess?"
"I thought I already was one," I said.
Aphrodite smiled. "I'm not joking. This isn't just an announcement to you, but to the world."
"You're going to claim actual divinity now?" I asked.
"I have made you stronger, smarter, more desirable. I can offer blessings and curses. I control technology that might as well be divine. Yes, I claim it. Prayers to me will be heard. Service to me will be rewarded," Aphrodite said.
That was her using my stream. I didn't doubt that she'd have takers. There were many desperate people out there in the world.
"I can't," I said.
Aphrodite shook her head and there was a trace of disappointment in the curve of her lips. "That is never the right answer. Declare your divinity, swear yourself to follow me, and you will."
Galatea cleared her throat. "Auntie may sound crazy, but she means it. You stopped being human awhile ago anyway."
I didn't even know why it seemed difficult to say yes to this. I'd agreed to everything else that had been put before me. Then I realized this seemed like going over the edge into madness.
But I'd charged into the unknown before. Charging was part of what I did.
"I declare myself the Goddess Persephone and I swear my allegiance to Aphrodite," I said.
Aphrodite clapped, looking almost girlish with glee for a moment. "Life or Death?"
"Excuse me?" I asked.
Aphrodite repeated, "Life or Death? You have two sides, Persephone, and for your coming-out party you're going to deliver one amazing miracle. Pick one."
Galatea said, "I'm just going to say—you just found out how pretty much everyone fucked over your home. Vengeance is so death,"
Aphrodite flashed Galatea a fond smile. "Oh fine, a little spoiler. Yes, yes, you pick Death and all those stations start falling out of the sky."
It would be slaughter, it would be slaughter on a massive scale. Not that long ago I'd have considered even one corporate death unthinkable and now... Now my hands were stained with corporate blood.
Aphrodite had explained that those stations were a boot on the throat of mankind. But without them, what hope for humanity going forward? Earth was a dying world.
"Life," I said.
"Boring," Galatea said.
"No, life suits her. I like life. Done," Aphrodite said.
"What is done?" I asked.
"Plants and weather control, and boring stuff," Galatea said with a pout.
Aphrodite gestured and the screens switched to display scenes from a ruined city. Blackened, fallen buildings and no people that I could see.
"I don't recognize it," I said.
"Detroit. What is left of it, the bombs in the last corporate war turned the buildings to ruin and the lakes into something toxic," Aphrodite said.
They'd named the treaty after the city—but they'd never been able to sign it there.
"Why are you showing me this?" I asked.
"Keep watching," Aphrodite said.
It was unnaturally fast, spectacularly fast, but it still took minutes. Minutes for the rain to stop falling. Minutes for moss to begin beading on the sides of buildings, for sprouts to burst from the ground and grow into grass, and flowers.
It was like a time-lapse of months, or years. Except it wasn't.
"Nanotechnology?" I asked.
"In part. It will take longer on the larger picture, but... well, it will happen. You'll turn the world green again," Aphrodite said.
Aphrodite flicked her fingers and my body rippled. Vines, flowers. My Network avatar in the real world. It must be the nanites. They'd been a part of me all along.
"Could have done that earlier," I said.
"Dramatic effect," Aphrodite said.
Trees were sprouting on the monitors. Detroit was becoming a paradise. Aphrodite did have a flair for the dramatic. I'd need to learn the same. I was Persephone now more than ever and if I didn't learn to ride this tide of change it would wash me away.
<<<<>>>>
Afterword
I’m fascinated by the idea of the singularity. The idea that humanity is moving towards this nexus point of technology and biology that will forever serve as a dividing line between what comes before and what comes after is a deeply compelling one.
This chapter of Persephone is all about the idea that we might have that but like any other advancement in human history it may not benefit all members of humanity equally. Just because the potential is there to elevate us all does not mean that we will all be elevated. Some of us, most of us, may very well be left behind.
May we be better than that.
Also by Skyler Grant
The Laboratory
A crazy AI who just wants to conduct mad science in a post apocalyptic wasteland filled with superheroes and the megalomanic who just wants to be Queen of Everything.
The Laboratory
The Airship
The Crucible Shard
Liam lives in a world where gamers are held up on a pedestal and their competitions are high entertainment where only the elite get to complaint. When he enters the virtual world himself he finds reality is far weirder than he could ever have anticipated, and when sometimes you think you are the hero you really wind up being the villain. Brutal action, real character development over the series, and many plot-twists.
Book 1: Dungeon Crawl
Book 2: Spawn Campers
Book 3: Corpse Run
Book 4: Gank
Book 5: Area of Effect
Book 6: DLC
Book 7: Endgame
Audio
Book 1: Dungeon Crawl
Book 2: Spawn Campers
Book 3: Corpse Run
Book 4: Gank
Book 5: Area of Effect
Book 6: DLC
Cyberpunk with a heroine who kicks tail and a world that is brutal. Corporations fill the role as culture and the Network is a vast virtual landscape people use to escape the horrors of a decaying Earth. Unfortunately humans bring their horrors with them.
The Persephone Saga
Book 1: Persephone Falling
Book 2: Persephone Rising (you may have just read it)
Book 3: Persephone Ascendant (coming soon)
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