"You do remember that blood oaths can't be willingly broken? Even if he wants to scream at the top of his lungs the information Bob wants out of him, he physically won't be able to." Ayami reminded Jack.
Jack laughed as only a modern and civilized dark lord could. "Yeah, I know. Besides, I'm not stupid. I know torture is worthless for getting information, they'll just squawk whatever they think the person with the branding iron wants to hear. Or are so damaged from the torture they can't even remember what their torturer WANTS. Bob is going to extract the information literally. It's just a very unpleasant experience having your mind be the victim of a smash and grab."
"Isn't invading someone else's mind, inside-where they're basically a god, dangerous?"
"Not for someone as cowardly and weak willed as that guy."
Hannah hugged herself and shivered, Yuriko hastily led the teenage girl out of the room.
+++
After Hannah had left, Jack grinned. "So Yuriko, do you have the guts? Does that kid really have your blessing to change every human alive? Do you have the stomach to rewrite reality on such a scale? Giving up," he gestured around. "All this? For whatever vision for a better fantasy ideal a teenage boy imagines?"
"Yes. It's my responsibility as the keeper of the Spells R Us shop. And I've seen reality rewritten and remade so many times. Relationships, friends, chance meetings, inspirations from forgotten conversations all rearranged or exchanged. It's nothing new for us."
"Heh, ya wanna know why Death never complains when these things happen? Because this is one planet Yuriko. Of a billion stars, of a billion galaxies, of a billion super-galaxies. There are empires out there that stood for a million years, that spanned galaxies, and faded into dust, with us never knowing about them. Even with so many transformation singularities ending in everyone in Earth being made into a creature that doesn't fear old age, Death's grasp is far, wide, and eternal. This timeline will be fun to watch Yuriko. Just make sure you have the guts and resolve to see it through. You better be ready to see this through to the end and whatever shape what used to be humanity is given."
+++
"I have been programmed to make all humans happy, therefore I will strap them all to tables while electronically stimulating the pleasure centers of their brains!" said the boxy silver robot on the holo-screen.
Steph cringed, she always hated this movie. It was produced back when Maid-Droids first came on the market. But it was still a favorite of Darren's parents for the handsome lead actor, the expensive practical effects, the actually well written romantic subplot between the lead actor and actress, the creepy camera shots in the first act, the well choreographed action sequences in the finale.
"A mindless machine couldn't possibly understand human happiness! We will stop you!" Shouted the broad chined actor.
Steph would have left the room, but it was her function to be on standby in case her family needed anything.
She might have been a closed system, but she could still multitask. And she could a virtual-world eye-piece as well as any human.
So she played Puzzle Privateers with her fellow Soul-Drive models, including driving one hacker crazy to the point the cheater accused them of cheating.
Steph thought how she, Ruby, Emerald, and Sapphire were the only soul-drive models in existence. Normally it wasn't something she thought about, or would have thought about, but with Darren's reveal she'd been a human in a reality that no longer mattered, she wondered if her sisters might have been human once. Not that she cared too much about lives none of them remembered, but it was encouraging to know Darren was showing some initiative for once in his life.
Though it did bring to Steph's attention a paradox, unlike in the movie she was watching, this did not, in fact, cause her to explode.
"Girls," she said over the silent chat. "I know it's a creepy thought. But could you imagine a world where there were no humans to serve?"
Just thinking about it made Steph shiver, and she knew it made her sisters shiver too.
"Well," Ruby said morbidly. "We could always serve each other."
The other maid-droids cringed as if Ruby had suggested they eat the poor to solve world hunger. "We're contemplating, not sick sis'," Emerald said.
"The moron models likely wouldn't notice. The arrogant models would pretend not to notice," Sapphire said. "I supposed we'd have to research cloning or finding another sapient species to offer our services too if it ever came to that."
"Since when are you into grim stuff like this Steph?" Ruby asked.
"Just thinking centered around my purpose. It's what we're supposed to do after all. ... Unlike humans, we see the price of civilization is that everyone needs to be part of the big machine, we just have the veneer stripped away. Employees need their bosses to sign their paychecks, we just don't chaff until things like 'boredom.'" From everything Steph had read about it, boredom was an emotion she was happy she was build to never experience.
+++
"Hey, Darren," Hannah said a bit hesitant, "Since you're gonna eventually zap everybody... I just wanna say, let New Me, remember this me okay? As a favor between friends?"
"I, I promise."
"And don't let new me convince you to forget about this me okay?"
"Hannah... if New You if ANYTHING let you, there's no way she'd LET ME break my promise to you."
"Yeah, true."
Darren though was wondering, what had Yuriko MEANT that Crystal had a different destiny to fulfill? Was he scared of asking? Was he scared that destiny didn't involve him after he finished doing... whatever with the rings?
He got through Gail's math class easy, it wasn't the soulless torture it'd been before. Much like the other teachers he'd made teenage genius'.
Next was history class.
"And the communists tried to create a utopian society, where the government was minimal at most, where everything was free, and everyone worked only as much as they wanted to.
"Except... human nature proved to be incompatible with such an idealistic vision. Humans instinctively horde resources, even with the promise of no shortages. Anyone who played an MMO with no limit on inventory space will tell you this. So everything being free was a disaster. And when someone doesn't have to work for something, they won't, except those seeking a challenge. Look at any video game that includes a cheat mode right from the start, and how many choose to use that to get through the game's experience rather than level grind or learn the patterns of the enemy characters. And as the cherry on top, the government actually became LARGER!"
Hans Swaltz had once studied to be a game designer.
"Basically a disaster brought on as a reaction from people sick of seeing business owners treat their hired help like disposable automatons."
That big made Darren start a bit. As he thought of Steph and the three maid-droids he'd created at the Burger-Cafe.
After class, Darren asked his teacher. "Has any government or society lived up to its ideals?"
"Not on a large scale Darren," Hans said. "When a community is small and everyone recognizes everyone else as a person, a system can work. When you get on a large scale, human nature kicks in. Benevolent dictators quickly become just dictators. An ideal system becomes fixated on enforcing the system rather than the ideal. In order for an ideal system to work, we'd have to be no longer human. The founding fathers had a saying. If men were angels, there would be no need for governments. If governments were run by angels, there would be no need for checks and balances. If you have workers who believe in the ideal, but not bosses, you get men worked to death. When you have bosses who believe in the ideal, but not workers, you end up paying them for nothing."
"So you'd need both?"
"Pretty much."
Hans stood at attention.
His skin turn shinny like plastic as his clothes vanished. At the same time, blond fur covered parts of her body, giving the illusion a scantly swimsuit. His ears vanished replaced with bend plastic ones atop. A blond fur husky's tail emerged from his rear. His hands and feet became like paws in spite of still having thumbs. His hair became large and flowing down his back, his eyes became large and blight blue like a doll's. His nipples, belly button, and other such things vanished, leaving only smooth flawless synthetic skin. And his figure finally charged, with a bosom no human body could support but she moved about without problem.
And in her new reality, she knew, she was an object, she was property, she wasn't human, she was defined by her function, her purpose. And she couldn't have been more fine with that. But being such an advanced model, she didn't need all her processing power to be a teacher, the rest was lent out to a game developer studio.
"Thanks, er, Miss Teacher, you're a great help."
"It's Hazel silly, and thanks, be sure to tell Steph I said hello," she said jovially.
"Okay... Uh, Hazel, how many people can you see as... people? I mean like we can."
Hazel laughed. "A lot more than you honey, no offense. Pretty sure it's somewhere between 22,500 and 62,500. And that's no including the general sense of empathy you have for those outside your social group." Which she then added lately. "That I'll add, too many humans have lacked in my opinion as a history teacher. Sorry Darren, my function is to teach history, subjective opinions shouldn't have a place in it."
"It's alright," Darren said.