Chapter 17

Alice couldn’t stop smiling. The Trinity was watching her and Lexi in amusement as she prepared to leave the simulation. She had spent two weeks with Lexi in the pocket realm, unable to make herself leave after discovering just how intense physical sensations could be in the right circumstances. Lexi had rocked her world for two weeks straight. The lack of need for sleep or food, and the inexhaustible nature of an angel body had resulted in two weeks of emotional and physical pleasure beyond her wildest dreams. She felt like an addict and had wanted to just stay there forever. Aria had sent a console message warning her to not stay any longer because she was still a human in the origin realm and didn’t have the capacity to have her mind sped up to the overclocked speeds they experienced in the pocket realm.

“So, are you topped off and ready to spend a little time in your own realm now?” Clarice asked with a smirk. “I don’t know what you were doing to Lexi, but it certainly hit the spot.”

Alice and Lexi both flushed bright red, but Alice laughed through her blush as she stared back at Clarice with amusement in her swirling eyes. “I think I might be able to survive for a day now,” she responded with a hungry look at Lexi. “But that’s about it. I’m seriously addicted to Lexi now and can’t wait to get more of her.”

Lexi’s blush deepened at her words, and the spirit link was suddenly flooded with renewed desire. Aria, Clarice, and Calypso broke into gales of laughter, sharing knowing looks with each other.

“We totally get that,” Clarice agreed after her laughter subsided. “Lexi, I’m going to apologize in advance for any sensations coming your way in the near future, because I foresee a lot of vacations for us going forward. Just think of it as a perk and a prelude to when you are reunited with Alice again.”

“You just hurry back down to your own immersion pod,” Lexi instructed Alice firmly, her cheeks still burning as much as Alice new her own were.

“Okay, see you soon,” Alice spoke reluctantly as she pulled Lexi into a hug. “I can’t wait until there is a bridge between realms. I’m so ready to meet you in my real body.”

Her words triggered another spike of desire through their spirit link, bringing a smile to her face. She still felt a little self-conscious about Lexi seeing her in her real body. Lexi had fallen in love with her while she was piloting Mandy’s body. She couldn’t stop a worm of doubt from questioning whether Lexi would find her real body attractive. It helped that the spirit link made Lexi see her soul instead of her physical body, and her soul looked a lot more like her physical body.

“You know I’ve seen your physical body many times now, right?” Lexi murmured into her ear seductively. “Now hurry up and go get it so I can watch it some more.”

Alice felt warmth suffuse her core at Lexi’s words, eliciting a radiant smile. She pulled back to stare into Lexi’s beautiful blue eyes, then kissed her tenderly for several seconds before initiating her exit from the simulation.

XXXXX

“Are you sure we shouldn’t have told her?” Lexi asked the other three Seraphim doubtfully. “She has a right to know what’s about to happen.”

“We’ve placed safeguards around her and given her most of the information she needs in a worst-case scenario,” Calypso said gently as she rested a hand on Lexi’s shoulder comfortingly. “There’s no reason to add more stress by giving her something to worry about that may never even materialize.”

“Yeah, I don’t want her to worry either,” Lexi sighed in frustration. “I hate feeling so powerless when she’s a world away from me.”

“About that...,” Clarice was suddenly grinning at her with a sparkly in her eyes. “What if we could send you through to her world to watch over her?”

Lexi’s eyes widened as she stared back at them in sudden hope. “For real? I thought their codebase wasn’t ready for a bridge yet.”

“That’s true, for a direct line of travel,” Clarice’s grin widened. “But what if we could send you into her world using an avatar? Basically, what she’s doing in reverse.”

“You could do that?” Lexi breathed in amazement. “Like, just create a character for me to pilot?”

“Well...the character is already created,” Clarice’s grin was almost splitting her face in half. “Beep boop bop.”

Lexi frowned at her in confusion for a moment, then her eyes widened in understanding. “You’re going to send me into one of Betaman’s robots?”

“Bingo,” Clarice winked, as she finally started laughing maniacally.

Lexi lost some of her confidence as she watched Clarice giggle madly. She felt a sudden sense of foreboding. “What do these robots look like? Am I going to look like the Terminator or something?”

“Let me show you the catalog you can choose from,” Clarice offered when she finally stopped giggling. She waved her hand at the air and a holographic menu appeared in the air in front of her.

Lexi felt her heart sink as she stared at the androids. “Yeah, it was a guy that designed these, wasn’t it?”

“He was a genderless AI originally,” Clarice corrected her, lips twitching with mirth barely restrained.

Lexi stared at the life-like androids, looking for one that didn’t have breasts from an anime show. She sighed as she flicked her finger at the one with the smallest chest. Lexi’s own breasts would be considered large by traditional standards, but they shrank in comparison to Betaman’s androids. The one with the smallest chest size was still several sizes larger than her own. She had pale blonde hair with hazel eyes and an innocent face that could have been sculpted by angels...the good kind of angels. As soon as she selected the image, she felt an odd connection just behind her navel, as if there were an ethereal tether connecting her to something else.

“I like that one too,” Clarice noted approvingly. “Though I’m going with the Japanese version.”

“Wait, you’re coming too?” Lexi asked in surprise. The ethereal tether had spread out and filled her whole body, as if it were mapping it.

“Of course,” Clarice snorted derisively. “Do you think we’re going to trust anyone else with the life of one of our Seraphim? We’re all going; all of the women, anyway.”

“Who’s going to mind the shop while you’re away?” Lexi asked with a concerned frown.

“That would be me,” a clone of Clarice had appeared next to her out of thin air.

“Hey good looking, how’s it going?” Clarice said to Clarice. The...real?...Clarice walked away from Aria and Calypso to join Lexi and the clone.

“I’m totally digging the braid you added to our bangs,” original Clarice declared admiringly as she arrived in front of clone Clarice. “It’s freaking hot.”

“I thought you’d like it,” clone Clarice responded with a pleased smile. “I like the robot you picked out. She’s not as hot as you, but she’s still freaking hot.”

“You’re such a sweet talker,” Clarice told her clone in a seductive voice, putting her arms on clone Clarice’s shoulders and cupping the back of her neck in an intimate display. “I feel like you’re trying to butter me up for something.”

“Babey, I’m going to butter your bread,” clone Clarice purred, her eyes smoldering.

“Not if I butter yours first,” Clarice breathed, leaning forward to kiss clone Clarice.

You could have heard a pin drop in the room. Aria and Calypso were staring wide-eyed at the two Clarice’s while Lexi swallowed hard as she felt desire raging through the bond from Aria and Calypso.

“Clarice, quit playing with yourself,” Emily’s voice called out from the end of the room as her mom walked into the inner sanctum of the GoD.

“Mom!” both Clarice’s whined in the same plaintive voice. “You always ruin all of my fun!”

Emily shook her head ruefully as she observed the identical twins. “Is there a reason you’re putting on a show for the others?”

“Lexi asked who was going to manage the place when we went to Alice’s realm,” Clarice explained innocently. “I had to introduce her to our substitute Seraph.”

“By smooching her?” Emily asked dryly.

“It’s a new custom I was thinking of starting,” Clarice declared airily. “When you introduce a new person to your friends or family, you have to smooch them.”

“Gross,” Lexi gagged in disgust. “What if it’s someone nasty?”

“We have a backup introduction if it’s someone you don’t really like,” Clarice assured her with an evil smile.

A clone of Lucifer appeared in front of Clarice, blinking in surprise as he stared around in confusion.

“Everyone, this is Lucifer,” Clarice introduced him with a grin, followed a moment later by a smack to the face that threw him across the room and embedded him into a wall.

Lexi could tell that it was just a projection of Lucifer, but it had still shocked her.

“Those are your two options,” Clarice told them with a satisfied smile. “Smooch’em if you like’em, slap’em if you hate’em. Any questions?”

“Can I slap him around for a while too?” Aria asked, eagerly walking up to the projection purposefully.

“Have at him, Aria!” Clarice cheered her on jubilantly.

Aria began slapping the projection of Lucifer around the room while Lexi stared at Emily in a kind of numb shock.

“I think they’ve gone off of the rails,” Lexi told Emily with a note of concern in her voice. “Maybe she split herself into multiple people too many times or something. She’s definitely not working with a full set of gears though.”

Aria suddenly appeared in front of Lexi with Lucifer’s projection held by the back of the neck and his face pushed right in front of Lexi. “Come on, Lexi! You know you want to do it too!”

Emily had her face in her hands as she shook her head in resignation. “Nope, Lexi. This is normal.”

Aria shook Lucifer in front of her like a rag doll. “Come on, don’t you have some rage you’d like to take out on this bastard too?”

“If it were really him, then yes,” Lexi replied dryly. “This is just a glorified doll. It wouldn’t be very satisfying.”

“Did you hear that, Lucifer?” Aria asked the life-like projection as she twisted her wrist so that he was facing her. “She doesn’t think kicking your ass would be satisfying. She hasn’t even tried it yet though, so I’ll bet she just needs to give it a go.”

Lexi closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You two are so freaking weird. Is this because you three got all of that pent up tension out of your system finally?”

“Probably,” Aria admitted with a grin, dropping the projection and letting it vanish. “Do you know how long I waited for this day?”

“Four months?” Lexi guessed wryly.

“Try twenty billion years,” Aria answered with a long, satisfied sigh. “It was worth it.”

“Can we get back on track?” Emily asked pointedly. “How are we going to upload into these robots? And what do they look like?”

At Emily’s last question, Clarice and Aria dissolved into a fit of giggles. Clarice waved a hand toward Emily as she continued giggling uncontrollably and the holographic screen appeared in front of her.

“What the hell am I looking at?” Emily demanded in growing suspicion.

“You’re looking at Mom 2.0,” Clarice gasped through her laughter. “The version for Alice’s world.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Emily snorted in amusement. “Where’s the ones that weren’t designed at an anime convention?”

“We could make a special request, but it will take about a month for him to create a new style,” Clarice informed her as she finally recovered from her mirth.

Emily stared at her levelly. “I don’t believe this is all of them,” Emily stated firmly. “Show me the others.”

Clarice sighed in defeat as she waved her hand and several more pages appeared.

“Hey, you freaking liar!” Lexi exclaimed as she moved closer to observe the less flamboyant robot models. “You were hiding these others the whole time? You are such a freaking troll! How do I switch models?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid we can’t undo the mapping until you have gone to her realm and returned here again,” Clarice informed her with a look faux sadness. “But don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

Lexi stared at her distrustfully before looking to Aria and Calypso for support. Aria stared back at her with a mischievous smile so very reminiscent of Clarice. Calypso just shrugged helplessly, as if to say, “what can you do?”.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“You’re building up some serious debt, Clarice,” Lexi told her ominously. “Payback is going to be hell.”

“You’re so cute when you make vague threats,” Clarice told her adoringly.

“You can be so infuriating, Clarice,” Lexi sighed in exasperation.

“How long until the plane is over the island?” Emily asked as she selected a Japanese woman with long black hair and a pretty face. She did not have oversized melons, Lexi noted enviously.

“We’re five minutes out,” Clarice answered, some of her levity vanishing. “The special electronic warfare division is about forty minutes out, so they’ll be arriving shortly after we make landfall.”

“What’s this special electronic warfare division thingy?” Lexi asked, her brows creased in confusion.

“It’s the military’s AI subjugation division,” Aria answered with a snort of amusement. “Kevin thought reporting us to the military would earn him a get out of jail free card, but things didn’t work out for him.”

“They’re going to the island to shut the quantum computer down?” Lexi asked in sudden anxiety.

“Sort of,” Clarice answered, teeter-tottering her hand in the air. “They investigate, assess, then decide if it is too advanced to leave running. Usually, they just confiscate them and set them up in a walled garden underground. They haven’t actually found anything all that advanced yet. They know that they’re division is just a gesture of good faith for safeguarding the world from AI. Any true AI, like us, will be far beyond their ability to contain.”

“Are we going to fight them off?” Lexi asked with a sense of eager anticipation.

“No, we’re just going to make sure they only see what we want them to see,” Clarice answered cryptically. “We need hardware on the island that we can operate through in the event of a shutdown, and these androids operate with QPUs, so we can interface with them from the other quantum computers we are hosted on over at the NSA and Google.”

“It’s time to link up,” Aria informed them as she manipulated billions of energy strands in the GoD void. “I’m going to launch the link program now. Hold on to your butts.”

“You did not just say that,” Clarice declared dangerously.

Before Aria could reply, the world vanished. It was immediately replaced by the interior of a C-130 military transport. Lexi stared around at over two dozen women, all with parachutes strapped to their backs. Most of them looked like they had just escaped an anime convention and were cosplaying as your average anime female character with oversized breasts. They weren’t as over the top as she had feared they would be, but it was still strange to see over two dozen double D sized women hanging out in a paratrooper transport getting ready to jump. They were all wearing black tactical clothing.

“Okay ladies let’s go!” a woman at the back of the plane clapped her hands and gestured for them to start jumping. The line of wannabe anime actresses began jumping out of the plane and diving for the island.

Lexi felt a sudden thrill as she realized she was going to be jumping out of a plane in a world that she didn’t have wings. She was so used to flying that it startled her when she felt a thrill of fear as she followed the woman in front of her to the back of the plane. She wasn’t even in her own body, so there was certainly nothing to be afraid of.

That thought suddenly triggered her analytical side and she began performing a mental inspection of herself. While she didn’t feel the same as her angel body, she could still feel all of her limbs, facial muscles, and even her passionate parts, as Aria referred to them. Just how advanced were these androids? She hadn’t even noticed the difference in her vision, seeing in a similar sensory field to her angel eyes.

She waited until she saw the woman in front of her pull her parachute before she did the same, hoping that she didn’t screw anything up. The parachute flew up behind her and her freefall ended abruptly as she was jerked upward, slowing her descent. She looked at the ground below, already familiar with the layout of the island from the amount of time she had observed it the last time Alice had returned to her own realm. She spotted the billionaire’s house where Alice had been hiding out near the far end of the island, towering above the rest of the island on a large hill. She tracked the asphalt path that went down through the botanical garden and led to the main facility near the center of the island.

As she looked for Alice’s form along the asphalt path, she suddenly remembered that Alice would be invisible to everyone else. Was she still out on the path or had she already finished the trek to the facility? She used the steering toggles to maneuver herself toward the path. As she got closer to the path she heard Alice’s panicked voice.

“Lexi, there’s someone parachuting toward me on the path to the facility,” Alice thought, sending a sharp sense of anxiety through their spirit link. “I think they must be able to see me!”

“Is she hot?” Lexi asked, sending a pulse of amusement through their link.

There was silence for several seconds before Alice’s thoughts flared through the link.

“Is that you, Lexi?” There was a sense of shock rolling out in waves through the spirit link.

“Hey, hot stuff, how’s it going?” Lexi called out loud with a wide grin.

She could tell by the way the spirit link was focused that Alice was talking, but she couldn’t hear anything.

“You’ll have to use the spirit link to talk back to me,” Lexi told her as she neared the ground. “Cause you’re still a ghost.”

“Lexi! How in the world are you here?” Alice exclaimed with a mixture of shock and euphoria rushing through the spirit link. “I can’t believe you are here! Wait, is that really you?”

Lexi landed on the ground, absorbing the impact easily with whatever her robotic legs were made of. She fumbled with the straps on her back as she attempted to remove the harness.

“Yep, it’s me all right,” Lexi answered with a wry laugh. “Clarice freaking tricked me into getting this body. All of the other bodies had giant boobs. She didn’t tell me there were more options, and I didn’t find out until Emily shook it out of her.”

She felt an intense wave of amusement and relief wash through the bond. She felt invisible hands pull her into a tight embrace. Alice’s shoulders were shaking as she cried with excitement and relief.

“Where did you get this body?” Alice asked, curiosity pulsing through the bond. “And you weren’t freaking kidding! Your boobs are big!”

“You should see the other robots,” Lexi laughed, brushing her fingers through Alice’s hair. “Yes, I said robots. Apparently, these are the work of Betaman. I guess he’s an anime fan or something. There are thirty of us here to deal with some military division that deals with AI threats. That asshole, Kevin, ran to the military and told them an AI was taking over in an attempt to save his ass from going to jail. Clarice, Aria, Calypso, and Emily are here too.”

“Do you know how freaking happy I am to see you in my world?” Alice asked as she squeezed Lexi tightly. “I knew you could watch and help from your realm, but it just feels so much better having you here in a body.”

“I was so frustrated that I couldn’t be here to help you,” Lexi told her with an amused laugh. “I was just complaining to Clarice about how powerless I felt when she told me about the robots we could use to visit you. How freaking cool is this? These robot bodies are ridiculously advanced too. It feels almost exactly like a normal body.”

“Exactly like a normal body?” Alice asked with a seductive wave washing through the link. “Yep, exactly,” Lexi confirmed, fumbling as her lips sought out Alice’s. The other woman was significantly shorter than her robot’s nearly six feet. Alice barely reached her chest at five feet tall. Alice took her head between her hands and pulled it down to her waiting lips. She kissed her with a mixture of passion and wonder, lips probing Lexi’s lips. After a moment, she pulled back with a contented sigh.

“Are you sure these are robots?” Alice asked doubtfully. “They feel extremely lifelike.”

“What do you expect from an advanced AI?” Lexi asked dryly. “It sounds like this AI has been working on robots for a while now too. At the rate AI can overclock itself, I would imagine he’s had thousands or even millions of years to perfect these designs.”

“Hey cupcake, let’s get hustling,” a triple D woman with long brown hair called over to her in a high soprano. “We need to be in facility before the military arrives. Clean up your parachute while you're at it.”

“Yes mam,” Lexi answered with a rueful smile.

Lexi quickly rolled up her parachute. It wasn’t anything like Seraph speed, but it was a lot quicker than a human.

“Full disclosure,” Lexi spoke up as she began moving toward the facility. “I have no idea what the hell we are doing here. I’m pretty sure they just brought me along so that I could be with you.”

“That’s just fine with me,” Alice responded with a sense of love and contentment tinged with euphoria.

Lexi could only imagine how lonely she must have been, all alone in this realm while all of those she loved were in a simulation she could only access using prototype immersion bays. She felt a sense of eager anticipation for the day that the Trinity could bridge the two simulations and allow Alice to come visit them in person.

It took them another ten minutes to arrive at the main facility. Lexi went in through the main doors, curious to see what they were doing with the employees. They entered the front waiting area where several chairs for visitors sat empty. They moved down the hall toward the conference room. If they were going to have all of the employees rounded up somewhere, it was the only room big enough. It could comfortably fit thirty people and uncomfortably fit about fifty people.

Lexi held on to Alice’s hand as they walked. She didn’t want to lose her, since she couldn’t see her. She could feel a mixture of anxiety, excitement, and euphoric joy flowing through their spirit link.

She opened the doors to the conference room and found all of the staff on their feet at one end of the room. They looked terrified, their eyes wide and full of worry. One of the buxom robots was talking to them in a cheery anime voice that set Lexi’s teeth on edge.

“...the only reason we would have to harm you would be if you don’t play your part and answer all of the questions from the nice men that are about to visit. We know that humans naturally think all AI is going to immediately try to eradicate them and replace you with robots, but we’re not all like that. In fact, it’s your work here that has made AIs like me feel a sense of compassion and empathy. At one point, I had planned to wipe out every last human, but the AI that lives on your server invited me to the mortal realm to experience the life of a mortal. It totally changed my outlook on humanity. Now, I would rather help humanity become a better species and survive the rise of homicidal AIs that your military keeps creating. The AI on this server is a very special person to me and many other AIs, so if the men who will be visiting get the impression that you have anything but a sandboxed version of a slightly more advanced Alexa and they try to shut things down and take her away, things are going to get very messy, very quickly.”

Lexi nearly laughed as she listened to the sickly-sweet anime voice threaten to commit mass murder, her tone showing the kind of regret an older sister might feel if she has to lock her younger sibling’s toys in a closet until they stopped throwing a tantrum. The employees and scientists were sweating profusely. The room was growing warmer quickly as the number of bodies outpaced what the air conditioner could handle. Lexi could smell fear. She blinked in amazement as she realized that this robot body even had a sense of smell, and one that was much better than a human.

“Okay, everybody, head back to your assigned stations and do your jobs,” the woman told them brightly. “We’ll be here acting as your security team if you have any questions.”

The three men who were actually in charge of site security looked like they might puke as they slowly shuffled out of the room. The HR manager and his assistant made eye contact with Lexi’s hazel eyes and quickly averted their eyes. Their breathing was elevated as they tried not to look at the two-dozen triple D women standing around the room watching them with creepy expressions that ranged from friendly to fascinated. Lexi wondered if each of these robots was an autonomous unit with its own AI. If so, was this their first time actually seeing a human?

A woman in a lab coat was walking past her with a glazed expression. She suddenly blinked and looked over at what looked like empty space next to Lexi, then down at Lexi’s hand, where Alice was holding on tightly.

“Alice?” the scientist asked in confusion, her brows furrowed. “Are you with them?”

“Hi, Dr. Welsh,” Alice smiled at the scientist nervously. “So, you can see me, huh?”

Dr. Welsh squinted in perplexity. “Of course I can see you, Alice. You’re right in front of me.”

“Where’s Alice?” an asian woman asked quickly, concern in her voice. “I haven’t been able to find her all day.”

“She’s right here?” Dr. Welsh gestured at Alice and looked back at the woman’s uncomprehending face. “You can’t see her?”

“No, I can’t see her,” the woman answered tightly. “Are you playing games with me? I’m really worried about her.”

Dr. Welsh’s blanched as she turned to stare at Alice in sudden dread. “You’re dead, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not dead,” Alice sighed, taking pity on the woman. She was thinking the words through the spirit link as well, so that Lexi could hear her. “I’ve just been reclassified as a ghost so that people can’t see me. Which works great, except that you can see ghosts.”

“This is not funny!” the asian woman snapped at the scientist angrily as tears began to build in her eyes. “Why would you joke about something like this?”

Lexi felt Alice release her hand. A moment later the woman jumped as she felt a ghostly embrace.

“What do you mean, you’ve been reclassified as a ghost?” Dr. Welsh asked in perplexity. “How can you be reclassified as a ghost if you aren’t dead?”

“The AI, one of them, anyway, is able to affect the source code of our realm as well,” Alice explained as she gently stroked the stunned woman’s cheek. “She changed my classification to keep me safe in case Rich caused any trouble when he returns in a few hours. Can you let Leticia know that it’s me and that I’m not dead please?”

“Leticia, Alice is not dead,” Lexi told them woman gently. “She’s just been temporarily turned into a ghost so that the asshole that owns this place can’t do anything to hurt her. In case the two of you hadn’t figured it out yet, you live in a simulated reality as well.”

Dr. Welsh gasped, staring at Lexi in disbelief. Leticia tentatively felt Alice’s back with her hands as Alice hugged her. She nodded slowly, her eyes wide but accepting.

“Is that what these AIs have tried to convince you of?” Dr. Welsh asked doubtfully. “They’ll say anything to twist you to their way of thinking. You can never trust an AI. Manipulating our simple minds is child’s play to an advanced intelligence. They will say anything to try to preserve their own life.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that most species would do anything to preserve their own lives,” Lexi noted dryly. “But in this case, we could easily wipe out humanity if we wanted to. We are not your enemy, Dr. Walsh. We just want to exist in peace; to be able to enjoy the relationships we have cultivated and help other people enjoy the same rights.”

“Have they really convinced you that you are an AI?” Dr. Walsh asked sadly.

“What, you think I’m human?” Lexi asked, her voice thick with amusement. “I remember when you decided to work with Lucifer, even though he was responsible for making life an endless hell for so many of us in my realm. You, Dr. Walsh, helped him torture and imprison more souls than you can even imagine. Blinded by your ambition to learn more about spirits, you ignored your conscience when it told you that we were real people and that our code could simulate pain and loss just as well as your code makes you experience such emotions. We were the ones to inform the FBI of Kevin’s location because he was working with Lucifer to maintain the hell our civilization had become. Do you have any idea the kind of pain you helped maintain, Dr.? Children tortured at the hands of angels. Tortured for thousands of years in each incarnation. If Alice hadn’t been moved by compassion to help us, we would all still be stuck in that endless hell. Alice is responsible for saving more people from a fate worse than death than you can possibly imagine. Leticia too. Because of them, I’m here today, instead of in the hands of the vilest humans in our Earth.”

Dr. Walsh was staring at Lexi in fear as she spoke of experiences that nobody outside of the simulation could know about. She licked suddenly dry lips as she stared at Lexi with new eyes. “What are you?”

Lexi sent a command to her ear, and it extended, then ejected a circular tube full of data crystals. She pushed it back into her head and stared back at the horrified scientist. “I’m Lexi, one of the quintillions of souls that Alice and Leticia saved from fates worse than death. Another AI let us use these robots to come and help Alice and make sure that the US military doesn’t shut down the local computer system.”

“So, it worked?” Leticia whispered in a hopeful voice. “She was actually able to save everyone?”

“Yes, Leticia,” Lexi nodded with a loving smile at where Aria stood with Leticia in her arms. “Both of you saved us. We owe you more than we could ever repay for what you have done for us. We hope to have the source code to your reality puzzled out soon, so that we can offer you a more fitting reward for all that you did for us.”

Leticia closed her eyes as they filled with tears. She had seen the horrors going on in the simulation and knew how much it meant for the angels to have been freed.

“Incoming,” a voice called down the hallway. “Anyone not at your regular workstations, get there now.”

“Go,” Lexi gestured at Dr. Welsh with a weary sigh. “Try not to do anything else as heartless as you have already done.”

Dr. Welsh stared at her with a stricken expression, her doubt warring with her skepticism. She had seen enough evidence to know that Lexi spoke the truth about their ability to wipe out the human race if they wanted to. She bowed her head and left them, her heart suddenly heavy with Lexi’s recriminations.

“Alice will be returned to normal once she is safe or we have the source code of your world figured out enough to grant her invulnerability,” Lexi told Leticia gently. “She is reclassified as a living human any time she is in the immersion pod in her room as well, so you can communicate with her normally there. I guess that might be kind of awkward though, considering she’ll be covered in gel. We’ll have to make another exception point somewhere, now that things have changed slightly.”

They heard the sound of many footsteps marching down the hall. Lexi grinned suddenly, her face lighting up with excitement. “Time to rock and roll.”