2178 New Berlin. Capital of the European Central Association with over 200,000,000 inhabitants
and cultural centre of Europe.
In the centre of the Celestia district is the large cathedral of St Mary''s Church with its associated
monastery. The Church of St Mary was founded in the late 2050s as a counter-movement to the
increasingly open Catholic Church. The KhM is an almost extremist organisation dedicated to the
protection of traditional values and the purity of the people. Over the last two decades, the church
has gained a massive number of followers. Immigrants in particular, who fled the NUSA after the
collapse of the USA in 2099, have dedicated themselves to the movement. Due to the high financial
and political power of the KhM, it has been virtually untouchable for several years now. Various
Mega Corps have already joined forces with it in order to benefit from each other.
One of the most controversial practices of this church is the ''young saints programme''. Children
between the ages of 5 and 9 are purchased from orphanages - not adopted, mind you, but bought
in the truest sense of the word - to become the future priests and nuns of the church. The children
are trained in one of the many convents until the age of 18, manipulated and made into the most
loyal members. One of these children is 17-year-old Marcus. He has been in the monastery in
Celestia since the age of 6 and studies the ways of the saints. Unlike most of the others, however,
he is not yet a faithful member of the faith, but is waiting to escape from the church. To do so, he
has to play a dangerous game, as the so-called unteachable are locked in the dungeons to work in
the underground factory beneath the monastery. To escape this fate, Marcus played the good
young priest until he reached the age of 18. Because as soon as a young priest is ordained and made
a fully-fledged priest, he has the opportunity to leave the monastery and become a missionary. That
will be his chance. Only 3 more years.
Marcus was sitting in biology class, where there was virtually no real biology, just ecclesiastical drivel
about God and how he created animals and plants. Everyone around him seemed to be mesmerised
by the talk. I wonder if others were just pretending? It was unlikely, but he wasn''t brainwashed, so
why not others? "Marcus, what tools did God use to recreate the animals of this world in his image
and endow them with intelligence?
...?" How Marcus hated that name. Him. Marcus hated that too. To her, she was a she and her name
wasn''t Marcus, it was Aurelia. Aurelia stood up as required by the students and replied: "He invented
DNA so that the animals wouldn''t all have to be hand-raised.
but to take care of the planning and creation of humanity." "Correct," Aurelia sat back down and
put on her fake attentive face again. The lesson continued, but she barely listened. How she wished
she was finally out of here. Aurelia glanced furtively over at the young nuns sitting separately from
the young priests and looked at their habits. In contrast to those of the old Catholic Church, they
were much more provocative and tight-fitting, primarily used in the early years of the church to
attract members. Over the years it developed into a
The tradition was to remodel the robes every 10 years and they were usually no less provocative.
How Aurelia would have loved to have a habit. However, the church was very keen on the traditional
roles of men and women and strictly refused to adapt to the modern world, which had already
decided in the 2040s to accept that there were more than just two genders. Another reason to flee
from here.
The rest of that Tuesday went as usual, after biology came theology for 3 hours and then politics for
the remaining 5 hours of the day, only to have to eat and then go to the chambers to study and
sleep. The next day the ordeal began anew. Aurelia stayed away from most of the other young
priests. She only spoke to Charles occasionally. She felt comfortable enough around him not to be
constantly afraid of exposing herself as an unteachable. To call him a friend would be too much,
rather a good acquaintance. But the hours in the monastery went by a little faster when she could
joke around with him. 15:00 Time for today''s theology lesson, which would be as useless as
yesterday and all the weeks, months and years before. After Aurelia, Charles and the rest of the
class had gathered in the classroom and sat down, there was a deafening thud and the whole
building seemed to shake. Some of the students hid under their desks, while others ran to the
windows to see what had happened. Aurelia remained seated, imagining how an accident in the
convent would distract everyone and give her a chance to escape. She would sneak out of the class
in the chaos of people, go into the nuns'' compartment to steal a habit for herself and then climb out
one of the windows and run away. What a load of bollocks, she told herself in her head. I''ve never
been that lucky and I don''t think I ever will be. Louder this time, and identifiable as an explosion. The
building shook even more and stones from the monastery could be seen flying around through the
windows. Now many more were hiding under their desks, while the nun who was teaching today left
the room and ran towards the explosion. "Marcus, go hide, get down here!" Charles shouted. But
Aurelia didn''t think about it. She rose to storm towards the door. She had hesitated often enough in
her life. Not this time. Never again! The door burst open with an inward kick and flew off its hinges,
right into Aurelia''s face. A brief moment of blackness later, she felt the heavy wooden door rest on
her and heard o n e loud bang after another. Gunfire? That thought only occurred to her after some
nonsense like fireworks or stones being thrown. She looked towards the door and saw two soldiers
firing their kinetic rifles, the kind used by most PMCs, into the crowd of students. Blood soaked the
floor and Aurelia froze in shock. That was probably the only thing that saved her, as she escaped the
soldiers'' attention. After the two soldiers let off a few more shots to make sure all the children were
dead, they moved on, presumably to another classroom. After the sounds of gunfire died down,
Aurelia summoned all her courage and strength to heave the door off her and leave the room. The
door was heavier than expected and her aching left arm didn''t help. It took Aurelia just under five
minutes to push the door far enough aside so that she could crawl out. She had to move slowly as
the floor was slippery with the blood of her classmates. They were all dead. She felt really sorry for
Charles and felt a slight stab of pain in her chest, but for everyone else there was only emptiness.
She fled t h e room and saw that the corridor outside was a battlefield.
Bullet holes, blown up walls, dead saints and dead soldiers everywhere. Apparently the priests and
nuns had fought back with everything they had. There were some kinetic rifles of the soldiers and
also energy weapons that probably came from the saints. Why did a monastery have such
sophisticated and deadly weapons? And how could they use them well enough to kill so many
soldiers who were apparently well equipped and armed? These questions would have to wait for
now, Aurelia had to get out of here first. She sprinted to the teaching wing exit, but it was
completely destroyed. She couldn''t get out here. Then into the main wing and through the main
exit. She ran, a little slower now, so as not to be so loud and not to slip on the blood that was all
over the floor. The large metal door to the main wing had been torn off its hinges and lay bent in the
corridor. Behind it, almost 40 to 50 soldiers were engaged in a merciless battle with 13 nuns and 5
priests. Aurelia wanted to go straight back, but the battle tied her down. Many of the saints were
equipped with the latest cyberware, she saw metal arms and legs, blades coming out of hands and
weaponised arms coming out from under the shoulder blades. So that was the reason why so few
saints could stop these soldiers. The question of why nuns and priests had military augmentations
occurred to her, but now was not the time to ponder it. She turned back into the corridor of the
teaching wing and ran to a ventilation shaft that she had often used as a hiding place as a child. She
was actually too tall to fit through it, but the situation forced her to squeeze through the narrow
opening with a flourish. Fortunately, there was enough space behind the opening for her to crawl
through. For the first time in her life, Aurelia was glad she wasn''t a biological woman with breasts.
That would have made the situation more difficult. She closed the ventilation opening behind her
and crawled far enough to be invisible through the slits in the grille and leaned against the wall to
catch her breath. She only gave herself five minutes to do so, however, because she knew that every
minute longer she stayed in the monastery, the chances of ending up like the others increased.
Aurelia knew that the shaft she was in led deep into the lower storeys. Whether she could get out of
there, however, she did not know. But if she could make out through the shaft system which way
the materials came in and the products of the factories came out, she could use that to her
advantage.
Aurelia had to be on the 4th or 5th basement floor by now, how deep did this damn monastery go?
Then she heard shots. Kinetic. No energy weapons returning fire. Either all the saints were dead or
the soldiers had sneaked through here. Aurelia crawled up to an opening grate to look through. The
shaft ran above an industrial-looking corridor. 5 soldiers opened doors, shot in and moved on. They
looked different from the others further up. They were equipped with cyberware, helmets through
which you couldn''t see their faces and carried larger weapons. Perhaps a special commando who
had a mission here while the others above provided a distraction. Aurelia tried to crawl on as quietly
as possible. She came to a dead end one floor below. What now? She asked herself. She ''sat there
quietly for a few seconds before deciding to leave the shaft. Fortunately, the openings to the shafts
were much larger down here and it was much easier for her to climb out than to climb in upstairs.
She dropped into the corridor and immediately regretted it when she felt the excruciating pain in
her injured leg. Aurelia picked herself up and limped along the corridor to a large door that was held
open by a massive electromechanical lock.
was held shut. "Damn it," she cursed before she could stop herself.
She heard footsteps approaching the door at high speed. Panicked, she hid behind one of the crates
standing at the edge, not a good hiding place, but she hoped the soldiers didn''t expect to find a
little nun in a priest''s habit here. The footsteps grew steadily louder until the small squad of soldiers
came round the corner with the cyberware and stuck a device with lots of displays and cables to the
door. They took a few steps back and waited. It took just under 10 minutes before all the displays
turned green and the door opened all by itself. The soldiers went in and Aurelia looked after them
furtively. The room was not large and almost completely empty. There was only a kind of terminal
in the centre with a ball-shaped lock at the top. The soldiers tried to use the terminal, but they
didn''t seem to succeed. Aurelia looked further across the room and saw another door that could be
opened manually from the inside. If she could make it there undetected, she could open the door
and escape. She just had to hope that the terminal was interesting enough for the soldiers not to
notice such a massive door as it opened. Had better ideas before, Aurelia said to herself. Then
maybe the way back. It was possible that these soldiers were the only ones this far down. With a
loud beep, the spherical shutter of the terminal opened and a glowing orb became visible. One of
the soldiers tried to grab it, but the orb dodged, hovered in place for a moment and then shot out
of the room straight towards Aurelia. Her last thought was, not in the face again. Then it went black.
When she opened her eyes again
she moved as if remote-controlled. "Oh wonderful. You''re awake. Then I''ll give you back control.
Please keep running, the soldiers are not far behind you and not in a very good mood." Aurelia
stumbled and fell when she was able to move again. "What the fuck is going on?" she snapped at
the air around her before she heard the soldiers'' footsteps behind her. She picked herself up and
began to sprint. "That''s it Aurelia. Take the 3rd door on the left, I''ll open it remotely and lock it
behind you." that voice came out of nowhere again. Not sure why she listened to this voice, she
sprinted through the 3rd door on the left and heard it lock and a large lock block the door. "Where
to now ghost?" she asked "I''m not a ghost. I am a millennia-old extraterrestrial artificial intelligence
that has connected to your central nervous system and brain stem. And go through the corridor on
your right and follow it to the airlock in the production facility. Aurelia followed the directions and
said, "When I''m no longer being hunted by killer cyborgs, you''ll have a lot of questions to answer!"
"Gladly" came out of nowhere. The voice led them across the factory and back upstairs to the Jung
Priester wing. "The side door of this wing is mostly undamaged and the least guarded." "Okay, but I
need something first," Aurelia replied. She made a small diversions into the supervisor''s room,
where she searched for a spare female supervisor''s habit. She found it in a cupboard and then made
her way to the side exit. The voice spoke again while Aurelia saw that the exit really was clear. "Keep
your body low and move along the hedge. Carefully, but not slowly." Aurelia followed the
instructions again; the voice had served her well so far, so she would probably follow it for a while
longer, at least until she was far enough away from the monastery.
The wall separating the church from the outside world was barely 500 metres from the monastery
building. Aurelia only had to walk a few hundred metres along the wall until she came to a ruined
gate, no soldiers for miles around. So she decided to give it a try and sprinted through the gate
towards the nearest side street without many people, in the distance she could already hear the
sirens of the local police. Once in the alley, she leaned against the graffiti-covered wall behind a
rubbish container. For the first time since she blacked out, she looked down at herself. Horror and
shock welled up inside her. At least 15 or 20 bullet holes had literally torn her body apart, her leg
looked even worse than before and shouldn''t be able to support her at all. Strangely enough, no
blood was oozing from the many open wounds. "Aurelia," the voice said matter-of-factly, "you''ve
been hit 21 times with 5.56 calibre bullets and you have a leg that can no longer do its job without
help. You are only functioning at the moment because of 3 different types of stims I gave you
while I took over your body." Aurelia was too shocked to reply and continued to stare at her wounds.
"Aurelia. If you don''t take care of your injuries, you will die. I can only acquire and use limited aids
myself. You must do this
take over. And quickly." That damned voice was so matter-of-fact and cold that it was almost absurd
what it was saying to Aurelia. Before Aurelia could say anything back, she saw a kind of menu open
up in front of her. It wasn''t a hologram, it seemed to be the way she always imagined Augs'' eyes
would appear, with little menus that could be used to do all sorts of things. The menu was set up
like a shop in an online game; Aurelia had never been able to play one herself, but other children,
who were acquired later in life, sometimes told her that the orphanage had a community PC with
internet access and all the things you could do there. In the top corner she saw a number 140. "Hey
voice, what''s that and how can I make myself whole again?" Aurelia asked in a weak voice. The
wounds didn''t hurt, not even her leg, which had almost driven her mad before, but she felt very
exhausted. "My name is Raya. And you have a number that is still 140 for you. You started with 200,
but I already had to spend 20 coins on each of the three stims. In your Basic menu, select the Nano
Closure unit for 100 coins. You then have to use it on yourself. It will let you survive, but it won''t
heal you completely." Aurelia was confused and looked around the menu for the unit mentioned.
There. In a submenu called "Basic Utility" was the Nano Shutter unit she was looking for. She
selected it and saw the coins drop to 40. Directly in front of Aurelia it lit up briefly and a box
appeared. She closed the menu and picked up the box. It was made of a thin, plastic-like material
with a seal on the front. When she opened it, Aurelia discovered a fist-thick, elongated syringe with
a
flexible tube and frighteningly large needle. "Insert the needle into a part of your body that is not
yet wounded and inject the entire contents of the syringe," came the voice. Was she insane? How
could she voluntarily ram something like that into her body?
"Aurelia. Your time is getting shorter and shorter. What''s more, you won''t feel anything as the painrelieving
Stim is still active." "But take a look at this thing!" "You''ve got about three minutes left
before you collapse and die. That''s not good for you or for me. So please."
The coldness of the voice faded slightly and a slight intensity could be heard. "Fuck.
Okay. Okay." Aurelia took the syringe and the tube with the needle, closed her eyes and plugged
herself in.
the needle into the forearm. And indeed. No pain, no feeling at all, to be precise.
She stared at the syringe for a moment until she remembered that she still had to squeeze the
contents into her arm. The viscous grey-brown mass flowed into her with unpleasant ease. Within
a few seconds, she saw the mass spread over the blood vessels, organs and muscles in the
destroyed parts of her body and seal the injured parts of her body, but without sealing the skin.
"Well done Aurelia. Albeit unnecessarily dramatic." came from the voice. "Shut up. Now you''re
going to answer a few questions for me."
Aurelia replied snappily. "Gladly" came back. "What are you?" came the first question. "I am Raya.
An artificial intelligence created by a species called Stargazers several thousand years ago. The
Stargazers have helped humanity and 7498 other intelligences in various galaxies to build a society. I
am a form of emergency aid designed to connect with specific individuals of each species and help
them defend their civilisation." "Then why were you under a damn monastery?" asked Aurelia. "Me
and my brothers and sisters were in the field in 2112, helping the warriors you call Sentinels until
2139 when the threat was defeated. We AIs left the Sentinels and were placed in a dormant state,
as we had been before. However, the KhM managed to intercept and imprison me. Outside of a
Sentinel, we AIs are little more than a moving LED
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.Lamp." "2112? The attacks by the Ovv''alti, the aliens?! I always thought that the humans developed
the technology for the Sentinels and kept it under lock and key ever since. At least that explains why
the Sentinels could do such blatant shit. Ok next question. What the hell happened down there?"
"Unusual choice of words for a nun. Basically, you were spotted by the light I was emitting by the
soldiers, who immediately started firing. I gave you three stims and took over your body. We then
fled until you woke up and took control again yourself." "I''m not a real nun and that
was everything?" "Yes." Aurelia bit her lip as she kept looking down at her body.
looked down. "What do I need to get my body back to normal?" "You need access to Category 1
medicine. 100 coins. From this category you need the Nano Healing Unit 100 coins. You also need
access to Category 1 Cybernetic Augmentation 100 coins to buy a Cybernetic Leg. I''m afraid even a
Category 2 Nano Healing Unit wouldn''t be able to save your leg. These cybernetic legs cost between
50 and 300 coins. Aurelia groaned. "And how am I supposed to earn coins? Is there some kind of
guide
or something?" "The coins are usually granted by killing enemies of humanity and protecting
innocents. But since there''s no invasion going on, you''ll have to settle for the latter. Unless you find
a way to track down the current enemies of humanity," Raya replied. Aurelia thought about it.
Weren''t those soldiers in a
enemies in a certain way? After all, they apparently wanted Raya in order to use her for their own
ends. But the saints of the church could also be seen as enemies. After all, they were doing
everything they could to prevent the social progress of the world and the betterment of living
conditions for non-members. OH, and the whole thing about enslaving young children to
to indoctrinate them or make them slave away in a factory. "Hey, tell me Raya. If I can get a
of soldiers or saints, will I get points for it?"
Raya was silent for a moment but then replied, "It''s a moral grey area.
However, it is certainly possible. Depending on how exactly the stargazers have defined what
everything counts as an ''enemy of humanity''. We can try it out, but you''ll have to steal a weapon
because you don''t have the coins to buy one yourself." "Then let''s test it out, I should be reasonably
stable again now, right?" "Wrong. However, you probably won''t find another opportunity to get lots
of coins any time soon. Provided your plan works." Aurelia stood up and prayed that the stims would
hold for a while longer, she took off her priest''s habit and threw on the nun''s habit. Damn, it looked
good. But she could admire herself later. She crouched down, checked the road to see if there were
"Damn, how do I get in there now?" Raya replied. "You can use the emergency exit in the cathedral,
there should be fewer people there at the moment," Raya replied.
She was right. Most of the people were facing the monastery, so Aurelia was able to steal into the
cathedral. Once inside, Raya gave her the description to the emergency exit of the monastery and
hacked into the system to open the door. Impressed by the ease with which Raya bypassed the
church''s security system, she walked through the corridor that led to the hallway of the priest''s
wing. Dozens of dead soldiers lay on the floor, with individual priests who had fallen during the
defence. "How do you even use one of these things?" asked Aurelia as she picked up one of the
kinetic rifles. "There''s a switch on the left side of the handle, which secures the rifle - it has to point
upwards to release the safety. Then you have to aim through the sights and shoot with the trigger.
Aurelia tried it out and realised that she really wasn''t very good at aiming. But it would certainly do
for the moment, she told herself. She picked up some magazines and crept towards the main hall.
Countless dead bodies, nuns, priests, soldiers and policemen lay on the formerly white marble of the
hall. Aurelia saw some who still seemed to be alive and shot at their heads, albeit with many missed
shots. With each enemy killed, she saw 10 coins added to her account. Morally reprehensible, but
simple. Just the way she liked it.
She moved through the corridors with her rifle, which she was slowly getting used to, and collected
coins. She was now at 230, and it turned out that both the soldiers and the saints earned her points.
She didn''t shoot at the policemen, as they were only doing their job. However, she didn''t score any
points on some of the soldiers. Presumably the soldiers who were not wholeheartedly behind their
PMC. But only very few of them were. She was just entering the dining hall when Raya said "Back".
Aurelia jumped back a little, just before several shots rang out in the doorway. "You can get your
first combat experience now" Raya said, Aurelia got ready
held the rifle at the ready and asked Raya "What''s the best way to do this now?" "I''ll tell you the
moment when it''s best to lean out of cover and fire. Wait" It took what felt like years, but was
actually only 25 seconds, for her to say "Now". Aurelia leaned round the corner just as the two
soldiers were facing each other to argue about who was at the door. Aurelia missed more than she
shot at her opponents, but luckily the magazine was big enough.
After 19 shots, the two soldiers were dead and Aurelia had two new bullet holes in her, one in her
left side and the other just below her left knee, which was barely recognisable as such due to her
previous injury. "Damn. Can''t you help me aim somehow Raya?" "Of course," came from Raya, "for
100 coins you can buy access to the
Acquire category 1 weapon systems. You can find targeting aids in them." "Okay, then I''ll get the
access, and the one for the leg," said Aurelia, a little out of breath. "Category 1 weapon systems.
Get access. Category 1 cybernetic augmentations. Gained access. Remaining coins: 50" "And now
something to help me aim" "Gladly. May I recommend the Auros Mark 2, a system that is used in
combination with eyes to show the user directly where the projectile will hit. A cybernetic eye must
be purchased first. I recommend a basic model for 25 coins. That will be enough to get you started.
The Auros Mark 2 also costs 25" "Yes, yes ok, go ahead, otherwise I''ll run out of ammunition too
quickly" said Aurelia as she picked up magazines from the two dead soldiers. "Cybernetic Eye Basic
has been purchased. Auros Mark 2 targeting system has been acquired. Remaining coins: 0" Two
boxes appeared in front of Aurelia, one small and one slightly larger. The larger one contained an
eye, the smaller one a chip. "Do you want me to rip out an eye or what?" Aurelia snapped at Raya.
"I can also teleport it into your eye, it will cause a moment of intense pain, while your current eye
will be destroyed. However, you should hardly feel anything through the stim. The chip
will then go into the slot that will be at the bottom of the eye." Aurelia thought for a moment, the
teleportation sounded much better than his own eye
and then replace it by hand with the new one. "Ok. Do it like this!". Part of her vision went dark for a
moment before it showed her surroundings in a much better resolution than her other biological
eye. Aurelia would have to get used to the differences in resolution. She looked down and saw that
the box the eye was in was now empty. She took the second box and removed the chip. It fitted
perfectly into the slot under her eye, which Aurelia had to admit was not so easy to reach as she
couldn''t see it. After a few attempts, she finally succeeded and a red dot appeared in front of her
new eye when she picked up the rifle again. As Raya had said, it pointed exactly where the bullet of
the rifle would hit, Aurelia tried it out with 3 shots. That would make the aiming thing easier.
Hopefully. She looked in all directions and then asked, "Hey Raya, where are the other soldiers?"
"The monastery''s security cameras show that most of the soldiers are in the factory area. They''re
probably on their way to the products to loot them." Aurelia took one of the dead men''s pistols and
tucked it into the side of her habit. "Right, let''s go there next." As at the beginning of the attack,
A u r e l i a u s e d the shafts that ran through the monastery. She found a small group of soldiers
who seemed to be making sure that no one would follow the others. She quietly opened the bars of
the opening and took aim with her rifle. Despite the help from her eye, about half the shots missed.
But it was a marked improvement on before. The soldiers died before they could really process what
had happened. She dropped out of the shaft and reloaded her rifle, which she only then realised she
should have done in the shaft, just in case there were more soldiers here. She was lucky this time,
but she had to be more proactive in the future. The corridor she was now standing in was well lit, so
Aurelia opted for speed over stealth.
In no time at all, she ran to a door that looked like it had been opened with explosives. She looked
furtively to see if there were any soldiers behind it, but it seemed as if there were. All the other
soldiers were already deeper inside the factory. Aurelia walked past production sites where children
and adults were chained in place so they wouldn''t try to escape while they worked. They were all
dead. Most of them with single shots to the head, but some were mutilated. "Apparently there''s
someone who likes chopping people up"
Aurelia murmured quietly. "In fact, the feeds from the security cameras show that it''s a single soldier
armed with a machete." "Hey, tell me Raya, can you
find out if there are still people down here who are innocent?" asked Aurelia and after
Raya replied in less than a second: "Yes, I''ll send you the room numbers. They were apparently too
remote for the soldiers." Aurelia looked at the numbers. There were 6 rooms, all in a side corridor. It
didn''t take long to get there and as she walked through the door to the corridor she immediately
realised that there really were never any soldiers here. There was no blood, corpses or bullet casings
on the floor, you could almost think everything was normal. She went to the first room and opened
the door. A piece of metal came flying towards her and caught her in the head. "Bloody hell, why
always in the face?" Aurelia exclaimed as she walked backwards out of the room in case there was
any more rubbish to hit her.
was thrown at him. "Hey guys, I''m here to save your arse, I''m not from the monastery or the soldiers
who are attacking." she shouted into the room and waited. After some time and no reaction, and no
rubbish, she slowly dared to enter. The children inside were all no more than 13, completely terrified
and some of them armed with tools and metal rubbish. They didn''t seem to trust Aurelia completely
because of her habit, so she went all the way in.
slowly and raised the rifle high above her head to show that she was not a threat. "I need to free
you, is there a terminal here to open the locks or is there some kind of key?" she asked the group of
slave labourers. One who seemed particularly brave said: "Under the warden''s table. But we don''t
know the code." Aurelia turned directly to the table and walked towards it. Under the tabletop was
a small display secured with an 8-digit code, before she could do anything or ask Raya for help, the
code entered itself and a menu appeared with a large red "Open" field. She pressed it and at almost
the same moment she heard the clacking of locks opening and saw the children pull off their chains,
and their
workstations. "Thank you Raya," Aurelia murmured quietly. There was no need to show the children
that she was talking to anyone. She would have to explain herself in the end. "No problem Aurelia.
The code was stored in several databases on the server. Someone would have to explain to the IT
team that this is a rookie mistake," Raya said coldly. Aurelia smiled slightly and tried to keep the
children in a group, but some of them fled the room before she could do anything about it. "Wait!"
she called after them, but without
Purpose. "hey. The rest of you stay here! I can''t protect you if you run away!" she said to the others.
"There are more like you down here, I''ll free them too and we''ll go out of here as a group. Do you
understand that?" came the reply
uneven "YES". Aurelia hoped that this rescue operation was as simple as she had imagined.
"Raya." "Yes?" "Do you have the cameras in view so that no soldiers or saints cut off our way out?"
"Of course." Aurelia turned and walked out of the door. "You wait here," she said to the group and
then went to the next room. The next two rooms were just like the first, while the last three were
all adults. It was so much easier to talk to adults. It took her much less time to get these groups
under control and only one escaped. After some time of coordination, all the groups were united
and Aurelia sat down at the front. She gave the most mentally stable adult, a man of about 25 with
long unkempt hair, the sidearm she had taken from one of the soldiers earlier and placed him at the
back of the group.
Group. Carefully and with Raya''s help, the group walked the long way up until they reached the
monastery and were able to escape through the cathedral. At the sight of the outside world, almost
everyone ran straight off without following Aurelia''s instructions. Outside, they were quickly spotted
and stopped by police officers. Aurelia remained standing in the huge doorway of the cathedral
while the last of the church''s slaves also went to the policemen, who had by now
emergency blankets and called in the paramedics from the nearby ambulance shuttles. "New coins
received. Current coin level 1320." came from Raya. It took Aurelia a moment to process that
number. That was a lot of coins. She moved deeper into the cathedral
and asked Raya: "What should I get first?" "Access to Category 1 Medicine and Cybernetic
Augmentations 1, from there the Nano Healing Unit and one of the available legs. I recommend the
B.E. 12, it has the strongest servos of the legs in this category. All together it would cost 600 coins."
Aurelia thought for a moment. That was really bloody expensive. But she knew that her stims
wouldn''t last forever and she wouldn''t be able to use her leg at all, and her body would probably
thank her for fixing it. "Okay, okay," "Purchase confirmed." Two boxes appeared in front of her. One
that was no bigger than a lunchbox and one that was the size of a rifle case. She opened the leg first.
It was dark grey with panels on the outside and barely visible hoses and servos behind it. It was
heavy. Really heavy, she could barely lift it out of the box. "Hey Raya, a
A little help with that?" she barely managed to get out. "Of course. I''ll use the same technique I
used on your eye." The leg dissolved into light and I saw out of the corner of my eye how my
destroyed leg began to glow. After about 4 seconds the glow stopped and her biological leg lay a
few centimetres from her new mechanical one. As the leg activated it started to glow a very slight
purple colour between the plates. She tried to move it and although it was a very unfamiliar feeling,
it was not unpleasant. She stood up on wobbly legs and moved a few steps. She turned her new leg
to the left and right and bent it several times. She would have to get used to it first. "Don''t forget
your
Other purchase" came from Raya, Aurelia rolled her eyes and walked slowly and carefully to the
small box. Another syringe. This time with slightly lighter-coloured contents and generally much
smaller. Fortunately, the needle on the flexible tip was also small. Without giving herself time to
think about it, she stuck the syringe into her arm and emptied it.
It didn''t take as long as the other syringe, the mass spread over all the wounds she had and began to
close them without leaving a single scar. Fascinated, she watched the process to the end. "Wow.
How does that work?" she asked Raya. "The contents are made up of nanoparticles that have been
created to adapt to the body and act like stem cells, changing into the necessary cells." It felt like
normal skin, were these really alien particles? Aurelia turned to the door of the
Cathedral to make sure no one got in. "Okay, but how does that work?" "Aurelia. The species that
developed me and this technology is so far ahead that it''s almost nine thousand years ahead of
humanity. There is much more impressive tech than that. With more coins, you''ll be able to acquire
it too." Aurelia would have liked to look Raya in the eye with an annoyed expression. Which was
unfortunately difficult, as she was hiding somewhere in her head. "Oh I''m sorry I''ve never seen
anything like this before Ms Alien Robot" "I''m not a robot, I''m a machine with artificial intelligence."
Aurelia put her hands on her hips. "Aha. So Ms Alien Machine, what other cool stuff is there that I
can buy?"
Raya replied with, "I recommend getting your own gun so you don''t have to use that primitive rifle
anymore.
must use. Access to category 1 kinetic weapons costs 100, as does access to
Energy Weapons 1 and Stargazer Weapons 1." Aurelia thought for a moment and finally said, "What''s
in the star thingy?" "Primarily weapons that are conceptually completely different from human
weapons. Railguns, teleport weapons,
Electronic weapons and many more. Would you like to purchase this category?" Raya replied.
Aurelia thought for a moment. Sure, energy weapons were dangerous, especially if you knew how to
use them, but half the city had weapons like that. "Ok. I''ll take the category!" she finally replied.
"Acquired. I recommend the Blender and one of the weaker ones
Railguns, I recommend The Exodus." "I don''t know what the first one is, but I''ll take it!" said
Aurelia just before two boxes appeared. The blender turned out to be a kind of pistol with a
Rectangular barrel without barrel opening. "This weapon teleports small cylindrical projectiles into
the enemy being targeted, opens to deploy the 10 blades concealed inside and then begins to rotate
at 2000 revolutions per minute. This weapon is particularly effective against heavily armoured
opponents," Raya explained. She urgently needed to find a victim to try it out. The other box
contained the railgun. It looked like an old-fashioned rifle where the barrel had been replaced with a
metal rail with lots of small blocks on the sides. The magazine was quite small, but she surmised that
you wouldn''t need many rounds if you hit with it. Which, it occurred to her, might be a problem with
her
current skills. That means she will have to practise with it. "New Coin Stand 140" came from Raya
and Aurelia decided to save the remaining coins in case she needed them for something specific at a
later time. The rifle had a thin black strap so that Aurelia could sling the weapon around her
shoulder while using one of the rails on her new leg to secure her blender. With her new gear
stowed away, Aurelia turned to the exit of the cathedral, peering out cautiously and recognising only
two people just looking in the approximate direction. Deciding that the two probably wouldn''t stop
her if they saw her, Aurelia started walking away from the cloister grounds towards the city centre.