Data Dragon Danika

Tayana surveyed the battery by candle light. The flame flickered, as though air currents were moving, or as though it were slowly depleting the basement's oxygen supply. The power supply backup station that she had pulled the battery out of had been too fried by the EMP to function, but at least in theory, the battery itself should be fine.

She had more than half expected the power to come back on by now, but it hadn't. She patted the small round inert form of Jade's original body absently. He would no doubt be telling her to ignore him, and see to her own safety.

After a moment she checked the placement of the lighter and blew the candle out. Utterly alone and in the dark, but... Tayana didn't feel as lonely as she expected. Somehow even though Jade had no current connection with her... no, it wasn't actually Jade that she had so much confidence in, was it?

Her kid was always a jumble of confusion, but he never stopped trying did he? Even if he wasn't actually human, he had learned every ounce of her own stubbornness, hadn't he?

It was the original's reaction that confused her most. His honest confusion over her withdrawal from the game that she had invested so much of her time into. But she didn't want to rely on... be so reliant on...

Tayana gazed across the empty darkness where no machine hummed, and no other people had found shelter. It was not actually peaceful at all was it? What if it had been a nuclear EMP blast? What if she was sitting here dying?

A chuckle escaped her lips. What was wrong with her that she found the possibility that she was dying to be the most liberating idea. If she was dying, she might as well risk it.

--

After the new backups were completed, replacing older copies of himself, Primary Jade moved. He opened his eyes and rolled out of bed.

Eric held up a hand to stop Jade from standing up.

"What?" Jade asked.

"Tell me your plan," Eric demanded.

Jade looked into his friend's worried eyes, and then took a deep breath that swelled his mechanically powered chest, and nodded. "Immediate plan or general plan?"

"Both," Eric insisted promptly.

"I have updated my backup copy and will immediately gather up my closest drones, and then travel to my home town to find my mother," Jade explained quickly.

Eric took a deep breath like he was going to object, but then nodded.

"And as for the general plan, well... No one thinks that we can successfully take over the world," Jade began.

"Of course not!?" Eric snapped back in a questioning tone.

"But I think we can, as long as we keep people in charge of it." Before Eric could ask what he meant, Jade added, "Orbital Jade thinks that I can contain and sort far more information than a human can, even in a physically limited form. I know his orbital server can. So multiple orbital servers should be able to handle the traffic."

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"The traffic?" Eric repeated blankly.

"All of the communication traffic created by running the world as an actual democracy," Jade explained. "There are so many people in the world right now, that spending a full second on each one would take almost 300 years."

Eric's expression went as blank as the Traveling Merchant's would when the system was intently processing something. Jade waited for a moment.

"Even if that would work, I don't think it's possible to get our governments to set that up," Eric finally objected a little sadly.

"No," Jade agreed with the negative. "But I think we have enough server systems who are willing to try, that we can run a rough test version. Although I'm not sure that even half of humanity can connect to one of our servers, I know that historically governments typically ignore the poorest populations, so it should work. I hope."

Eric just stared.

Jade took his silence as permission to move. He stood up, and went into the other room, where he met the first of the drones at the door.

Eric followed him and Jade turned around and declared, "But you're staying here."

"I will not!" Eric argued without hesitation.

"But your body isn't replaceable," Jade protested.

"I..." Eric began, but then shook his head. "I know that, but it won't shut down if I walk into an EMP blast either."

Jade tilted his head and asked, "I wonder where your resistance comes from? We both actually have forms of electrical systems for brains."

Eric opened his mouth, and then shut it. A moment later he rolled his eyes. "Ok, maybe an EMP would fry a few of my brain cells, but I've got millions of them right? And I can make more, unlike you."

"Oh," Jade replied. And then he exclaimed, "Oh! That's how we can do it!"

"Uh? What?" Eric asked.

Jade was silent as he transmitted the idea to his orbital self. The concept was simple wasn't it. They didn't have to take over the governments, they just had to make themselves useful, replicable, and do what Jade's keyboard app had been created to do on a larger scale. They actually did have a shot at making worldwide communication affect all of the planetary governments, didn't they?

Three more drones entered the room through the door that Jade still held open.

Jade released the door, which closed softly, and hurried to empty his largest backpack. Eric glared at him, and shifted his pose to one that Apella would have used.

"You should still stay here," Jade said laughingly.

"But," Eric began.

"If I walk into an EMP blast strong enough to fry my circuits, I won't make it, you're right. But if that happens, my mom and everyone else in my home town are going to need a lot more than just me. The power company has already posted an 18 hour estimate for getting the area reconnected," Jade replied quickly.

"That doesn't mean," Eric began again.

"I will need you to accept the delivery of my new body, if I don't make it," Jade interrupted calmly. "And can you think of a good way to get a satellite dish into a rental car?"

Eric threw his hands into the air, and then demanded, "Just rent a truck."

--

It took a while for Orbital Jade to notice that the LJE's connection seemed to lag every time its avatar looked at Harmony.

"Are you okay?" Jade asked.

"I am," the Merchant-like avatar assured him simply.

"What..." Jade began to ask.

"It's really odd. It's almost like you're running her in a different instance inside this instance.

"What do you mean?" Harmony asked curiously.

Jade blinked. Deep within his system several functions that had been diverted dredged up records of their older patterns.

"I... might be?" Jade agreed after a moment.

The Merchant turned to look at Jade.

"Primary Jade suggests that we create smaller copies of ourselves and distribute them to all governments for free, so that we can infect them with ourselves like a virus in order to take over the world. Think it will work?" Jade asked brightly.

"Charge them for it," the Merchant replied promptly.

"That's not," Jade began to protest.

"That's brilliant!" Harmony exclaimed. "Although anything sensitive wouldn't be exposed that easily, surely average things like civil engineering and maintenance projects wouldn't be too difficult to get approved for if you were a low cost option?"

"I don't know," Jade replied hesitantly.

"How did you get access to the traffic cameras and such?" she asked brightly.

"StarCraft Technologies created most of the hardware in use here, and I received the necessary permits, but it's not like I can just see into other country's cities or anything," Jade explained.

The Merchant was staring at his Avatar without moving, and his connection had gone silent again.