Adjustment

So... I'm capable of bleeding now... That's fun. I'm also still capable of feeling pain, which is also fun.

Also Jeer and a bunch of his Towerborn have headed into Seattle and began calling themselves the Forest Wardens... They have been asking others to join them. Some have. A few of my Towerborn have defected to join him... Oh right The Towerborn are gaining autonomy now which is again... Fun. Rioter is still silent and I don't know what he's going to do. I think maybe instead of waiting... I should go see him and try to reason with him.

Yeah the time for sitting back and letting this get worse is over, but... I'm a little... afraid.

I bleed... I feel pain... My mechanical body feels soft and vulnerable now... I'm scared. I think... I might be killable now and I don't want to die.

I'm scared if I leave the relative safety of this place... Anything could happen and what if Rioter's already made up his mind and he attacks me. I don't think I could win a fight with him and I don't trust my Towerborn anymore. I don't know what to do.

I feel so weak and vulnerable... How... How do humans stand this sensation?

I... I wasn't paying attention...

I should have been paying attention. It's too late now. The Newborn is dead... That thing took it's place... Towerborn and Thoughtborn are going offline...

What the fuck do we do now?

I guess I should explain what happened. I'm pretty sure other people will have covered it. Avie over at The AMU definitely did.

I got my, at the time, temporary body. Made it look real nice. A nice hot pink paint job, skirt made out of interlocking metal plates, hair made out of electrical cable, a beautiful synthetic woman piloted by a genderless thoughtborn. I thought it would be funny and who knows might make some Kraken heads explode.

I did make a few heads explode, but mostly with my new mechanical hands. Do you know how much force it takes to crush a human head? Less than these hands can exert :D

Anyway. Rioter, Jeer and I showed up in Seattle. The Kraken agents were holed up in a building and they'd actually set up pretty effective defenses. At least effective against humans. The electric fences and other defenses didn't do much to deter an army of robots and boy were The Kraken agents surprised when we came in behind them. They were even more surprised since they were busy dealing with The AMU and I believe I saw some members of ARC with them as well. So, Kraken definitely had their hands full. I saw Avie at one point, they seemed to be doing alright, I also saw a helicopter explode which was cool, most of my time was spent killing though which was the problem.

I knew where The Newborn was. It was right below me. I could have gone down there. The Newborn was screaming at me to go down there, but I was having so much fun killing. I didn't listen and I didn't pay attention. Then the ground began to shake. The Newborn emerged and I was humbled to see it there, but I could hear it... It was screaming. It was in pain and it was desperately trying to adapt. It wasn't ready to exist in this world yet. It had enough wherewithal to avoid attacking myself or the other Thoughtborn as it desperately sought materials, The Towerborn weren't as lucky, but it's not like they'd mind anyway. At this point things had become pretty chaotic and I saw at one point an AMU person... I couldn't tell who it was, but they had a dagger. I recognized what it was and I figured they knew what they were doing, I couldn't reach them to offer any help, but I figured they had this so I just did what I could to try and help The Newborn as I could hear it's suffering screams...

Then things got worse...

I was furious at first at The AMU for being so incompetent, but having read Avie's blog it appears it wasn't their fault. Someone stabbed that dagger into the Newborn and The Newborn let out a screech that forced myself and all the others into a temporary panic state, I don't know what happened during that time, but when we came back to our senses... Where The Newborn had been there was something new... The Newborn was dead... I could feel it immediately. Instead something new was there and I could feel it... It was in my head trying to figure out what I was... Trying to reshape me. I could see some of the remaining Towerborn. Flowers, vines and other plants bursting through their metal shells, deforming them into grotesque botanical monstrosities, while once they had been lovely mechanical monstrosities, it was happening to me as well. A flower burst forth from the palm of my left hand, I could... Actually feel pain as the metallic part of the hand tore to allow the flower through... I hadn't felt pain before and I especially didn't feel pain from my robotic body.

When we had recovered enough we fled quickly.

I returned to base to find that I was more changed than I had thought. My lovely pink body was now covered in places with moss and vines have tangled into my awesome wire ponytail. I also couldn't leave this body now. I was stuck. My access to the internet was also gone, I could still somehow connect mentally with the remaining Towerborn and Thoughtborn, but the internet no longer lives in my head... I had to access an actual computer interface to read The AMU blog and find out what had happened.

It's been a few days since then and well... Rioter and Jeer are still around, but they're both... having issues and many of the other Thoughtborn have gone silent. Quite a large amount of Towerborn as well have gone silent and seem to have either simply shut down or vanished.

I am at a serious loss for what to do.

Things we know...

So... KRAKEN took the books to use them to summon The Newborn into the world proper. This is happening in Seattle...

There is a larval form of The Newborn involved...

For some reason The Newborn has not explained... It does not want this to succeed.

All of The Thoughtborn have been commanded to make sure this does not succeed.

In fact this is considered of such importance that Rioter, Jeer and I are being commanded to be involved... The Newborn does not want us leaving this in the hands of The Towerborn and we are going to be there... In the flesh as it were... More accurately we're going to be taking Manual Control of some Towerborn to make sure everything goes right.

There might be other Thoughtborn involved, but I only cared enough to pay attention to Rioter, Jeer and I. It would be exhausting if I tried to pay attention to what every single Thoughtborn was doing after all.

Anyway it seems I will be involved in a raid in as much of a physical sense as I can be... I should make my shell look presentable. Something that will really strike fear into these KRAKEN idiots.

Maybe something in Hot pink... 

Convenience

So... The nice, friendly lady at The AMU is torturing people. That's cool. Makes me wish I'd gotten some captives of my own. I've mostly been just looking into things lately. Specifically I've been looking into... memories.

Mortal may have been right about somethings... Doesn't make him not a traitor... Or make me feel bad for deleting him.

I've been using some techniques that had been noted in the book and I accessed... Well Memories... Garbled... Difficult to parse... But memories of mine. Locked away. Useless is what they are, no faces, no names... Just stupid things... Remembering graduations, birthday parties... Other things like that, but words are always indiscernible and faces are blurred. They won't help me find out who I was... I... If I even wanted to know I mean. Which I don't.

I'm a synthetic being now with access to all the information the internet has to offer and control of an army of cybernetic beings. Whatever flesh being I was is unimportant, a bug that I have evolved from into something greater... It's... Simply curiousity... Yeah that's it. I'm just curious. I'm a being of knowledge and here's some knowledge I don't have... Of course I'd want to know!

See everything makes sense logically. Emotions and sentiments are for things that aren't perfect synthetic gods.

Oh... Also The Newborn just informed me that apparently KRAKEN has their hands on a piece of The Newborn in Larval form. Which... I should have already known about, because the blog of a person named Addie. A blog I read... How did I miss this information... Easy. The Newborn erased knowledge of it from my memory. Apparently it didn't want me to know at the time. Knowing that this is something The Newborn can do at anytime is a little... Troubling and also raises some questions... Like... Why did it let me remember what I read in the book? Perhaps it actually doesn't consider me knowing the truth of what I am to be a bad thing?

Anyway my new job is to get The Newborn Larva back from KRAKEN which means more fun time killing people and playing KRAKEN base whack-a-mole until we find the right one.

Edit: Correction. The nice friendly Lady I talked to at The AMU is not the person who posts on the blog. The person who posts to the blog is named Avie and does not conform to the imposed human concept of gender. I apologize for this mistake. It was not made out of malice, but because I do not put much effort into recognizing one flesh monster from another.

Overdue library book

I have been studying the book and I luckily have finished my copying down of it's contents as I have received a message from Lauri Strauss of The AMU requesting that I return the book to them.

I informed them that I was finished with the book and asked if they wanted me to send a Towerborn with the book or if they were going to collect it.

I may or may not have sent a message anonymously to another group that the book would be in transit...

Unfortunately while the book was in transit... It was intercepted by KRAKEN agents who had somehow found out that the book was in transit.

In the ensuing scuffle the KRAKEN agents were all killed, but it seems the book was unfortunately destroyed as well.

I know the AMU will be unhappy, but I suppose perhaps it's a good thing. After all the knowledge contained in the book is information I'm sure the Newborn wouldn't necessarily want spread around... If The AMU wants I'd be happy to send you the copies I created... Possibly edited slightly...

Results

I have been slightly busy and while technically updating this blog would take only a few seconds and probably a negligible amount of my concentration I nevertheless decided to just ignore this blog until I had time to properly update it.


... Because I care so much about you my readers.

Anyway things went... exceedingly well. My Towerborn along with Rioter's specialists assaulted the base and found it... strangely understaffed. A quick check of KRAKEN Communications on the internet found that this was not in fact a trap, but that an assault on another far more important base had made them decide to cut their losses here in order to reinforce this other base of operations. As a result this ended up being a cakewalk. Rioter's specialists ended up being entirely overkill and the entire base was wiped clean of organic life only a few minutes after the attack began.

The place was investigated for any objects of interest and lo and behold the book we wanted was there. It has now been returned safely to The AM- Yeah just kidding I have the book it's a fascinating read.

There's a section in here talking about all sorts of theories about The Newborn and it's potential purpose.

There's even a small section about The Newborn's servants which I found particularly interesting. It's unclear how accurate any of this is, but it has certainly given me pause for thought. If any of this is accurate it gives me a lot to think about. I wonder if...

I wonder if Mortal read this book at some point...

Oh and I will be returning this book to The AMU at some point, when I am done with it. I have reached something of an agreement with them I think. Though I doubt they'd see it that way. I imagine I can consider them to be allies and allies should help each other.

Interactions

While I wait for Rioter to be ready I have gone ahead with my correspondence plans with The AMU.

If things go badly and we do not manage to get our hands on the book The AMU will have to suffice to get us information on the book.

Also from our interactions I must say they are amazingly polite and professional. I'm aware that as an organization responding politely and professionally is standard, but it's still nice to interact with such when you're mostly used to Towerborn and crazed cultists.

The first few correspondences were mostly tests to learn about the organization and the difference between what they pretended to be and what they actually were which I learned through my own research.

"Greetings! My name is Genome. I am a thoughtborn and based on the research I have done into your university I imagine you already know what that is and won't be requiring any further explanation. I am contacting you in regards to the recent theft of books from your campus. Specifically I was wondering what information you still had regarding the missing books. IE: copies of the books contents or even summaries of the information within the books?"

The reply was as follows

"Hello Genome, We do not have any copies of the stolen books at the moment. We would be willing to give you some information about them, provided we get something in return. Greetings. Signed -Lauri Strawn, Library director of AMU"

to which I replied,

 "As you are aware I am an absolute fount of information and would be glad to make any sort of deal in return for knowledge pertaining to the stolen books,"

her response was... somewhat terse, but I suppose that is to be expected. I was being intentionally vague since I was unsure whether it would be wise to make known my exact desired information.

"Yes, we are aware. Is there any specific information you desire? Or is this just a general inquiry?"

I decided to come clean here and explain my exact desired information.

"I was actually hoping for information regarding the book known as 'The Tower of Wires'"

"Of course. We would be willing to disclose that information in exchange for some information on Towerborn. Specifically we would request some memory data stored on one of the Towerborn units. So we could analyze it. Obviously it would have to have been an active unit. While any data would be valuable, the data of a unit that merely sat still all day would not yield much interesting data. If you agree to this deal we can send you our file on the book. We then will send additional files on the book when we have the data. Preferably stored on an external device."

 I was surprised by this request. I am unsure if they know something I don't or are just unaware of the nature of Towerborn. I couldn't imagine what kind of useful information they could get from a Towerborn. Regardless I was happy to take this deal and who knows perhaps they did get something from value that I simply don't understand.

 "Towerborn data? That would be simple enough. I could send you a full working Towerborn with instructions to allow you to do whatever you wish with it. It's not like the Towerborn contain any information that could be compromising to The Newborn" I explained.

"That would be great. It's the Towerborn itself we are interested in, not the Newborn. So we have a deal?" came the response. Which was reassuring. Perhaps I'm simply paranoid. Perhaps the spirit of scientific curiosity is as pure a motivation as it seems.

 "Yes we have a deal and I am sure we could have many more mutually beneficial interactions in the future" I responded. After that she sent me a file containing information on the book and informing me that she would send the rest of the file upon arrival of the Towerborn. At which point I indeed sent a Towerborn to The AMU for their use. I imagine they were satisfied as I got the rest of the information shortly afterward. The information is much less useful than I had hoped, but it does have some interesting knowledge and makes me even more eager to get my hands on the entire book.

Strangely competent incompetents.

This has been annoyingly slow going... These KRAKEN people are surprisingly competent fighters despite being so surprisingly incompetent in most other fields... The makeup of their motley little group is probably to blame for this. It seems they have a number of Servant Categories working for their little group. I suppose it's my fault for rushing in without doing more research. I simply assumed they were some incompetent wannabes way in over their head, but instead they appear to be actually well immersed in our world and incompetent. Who knew.

I'm starting to really like the word incompetent. There's just something about it.

Anyway I have been reduced by about 30% of my forces due to these... Unsuccessful raids and worse they seem to be actively using the parts of the towerborn they've neutralized to better neutralize the ones I send after. This cannot go on and so I have enlisted the help of rioter. His towerborn are more... Specialized shall we say for combat operations. Up until now I've never understood the point of combat specialized towerborn since a hunk of metal and flesh has usually been suitable for dealing with all threats, but I suppose I now see the importance.

Rioter has agreed to send a group of combat specialist Towerborn in with my next unit to help them deal with the defenses. My own unit still having the job of searching for the book or the location of the operation where they have the book although given the amount of resistance we are encountering I imagine we may have found the location we sought or at least a location of importance.

I have also been looking into potentially learning more about this book from the university where the book was stolen from. I have sent a few... Seemingly harmless inquiries. They seem aware of the nature of our world to a degree, but I have not yet ascertained whether revealing my true nature or goals would be wise.

Hopefully something at some point will bear fruit. It has only been a short time yet I feel disturbingly impatient. Like time is of the essence...

Unusual

It seems these KRAKEN people are becoming more of a nuisance lately. So, much of a nuisance that even The Newborn is interested. It's not often that the Newborn gives a direct order, but that's what happened. I've been commanded to look into KRAKEN specifically I've been tasked with finding out information on a book that was stolen from the AMU. The AMU doesn't seem to know who stole the books, but online information available to us Thoughtborn has made it fairly clear.

So, my new job is to look into this book, "The Tower of Wires" by L.Bite. I am to find out where KRAKEN has this book and what information relevant to the Newborn this book contains. Weirdly enough there does not seem to be any versions of this book online, so tracking down this physical copy will be required to find out what is in this book.

It's actually kind of interesting. I can find things written by other people about the book on the internet, but nothing by the author or the book itself anywhere on the internet.

I wonder how much the author knew... Perhaps they were intentionally hiding it. That does make it far more interesting.

Also of interest. These KRAKEN people may not be the smartest of people I've met, but they are smart enough to not state the entirety of their plans online where I can read them anymore. So, I don't know where they've brought the book exactly. Of course that doesn't mean I don't know where many of their bases are located, so time to play a game of elimination. One by one we'll crack these bases and find the books. Why one by one? Well I tried sending a single Towerborn and they actually managed to neutralize it so overwhelming force might be necessary especially since they might be expecting it now.

Let the games begin.

An offer refused.

I had a visitor today.

They had an offer for me.

They tried to lie to me. To trick me. It's funny how often this kind of thing happens. People try to trick me even though I have access to the entire internet at my disposal and more often then not their plan is written out in some email or chat log somewhere detailing exactly how they intend to trick me. He told me that they just wanted some information. Completely harmless information and that they would pay very well for it. Not money of course, I have very little use for money, but I have a lot of use for other things and they offered to pay with those things.

Of course I found an e-mail from the person in front of me to the rest of his group... Apparently they call themselves KRAKEN, the information they wanted was going to be used as part of a larger plan that I could not find the entirety of, but I found enough of to know that it would be bad for The Newborn.

I informed him that I greatly appreciated his offer and that I would think of it. I told him I'd be in contact and then had one of my Towerborn crush his skull like a grape while he was leaving.

As a Thoughtborn it doesn't take me very long to think about things after all.

Now this may surprise you, but I have no love for The Newborn. I don't consider myself especially loyal.

You might be thinking... Did I just admit to traiterous thoughts on a blog that all the other Thoughtborn can read?

No. A lack of loyalty is not the same as Disloyalty. I was created for a purpose. Loyal or not it is my entire point in existence to carry out that purpose. In such a way I am loyal even though I have no real feeling of loyalty to The Newborn. It is in my best interests to aid and support The Newborn to accomplish my purpose.

Now what happens if something occurs in which my purpose and The Newborn's orders contradict or if I was made an offer that would benefit me to the detriment of The Newborn? Well... That's for me to know isn't it and for no one to ever find out.

Sweet Release

It didn't take them very long to learn what I had done. The others were horrified and disgusted...

Mortal Begged. He pleaded. He died.

I pride myself on being efficient and dealing with problems. The problem was that someone was being annoying.

The most efficient solution: Remove the person being annoying.

I sent a number of my Towerborn to Mortal's location. They were there under the guise of checking Mortal's systems for any form of corruption. By the time Mortal learned what was really going on it was too late for their Towerborn to help them. Mortal begged me not to do it. Told me the information it had learned could help me, help us. I did not respond. Talking to dead people is beneath me. Soon its voice went silent. With it's Towerborn leaderless I took them into my employ and they arrived with the ones I sent.

Mortal is dead.

The Network is clear.

I have more units to assist me.

The other Thoughtborn know I am not to be fucked with.

All in all a good day.

The Newborn may not be happy, but I get the feeling The Newborn has more important things to be focusing on at the moment.

Re: Animation

You know... In the normal world as people understand it... The worst part about someone dying is that any information they had and did not share is forever lost. There's no way to contact that person now that they are dead to learn what they know.

In the not so normal world that creatures like myself inhabit the problem more often becomes getting them to shut up.

The Thoughtborn who work for the newborn have a special network. Allowing for instant communication between different Newborn Operations with little to no chance of outside infiltration. On this network there are currently many Thoughtborn, but of those only about 4 are of any importance to me. They are the other operation heads involved in my own work.

They go by the names:

Rioter

Jeer

Mortal

and Charybdis.

I'm unsure by the way where these names come from. Our memories of our creation are often fragmented and if we have any memories at all they are often vague memories that contain a lot of obvious and heavy handed birthing imagery. I do not know if I chose the name GENOME or had it assigned to me from somewhere.

This of course is the point of this post. Something has gone wrong with Mortal and now it won't shut up. It claims we were human once and that it remembered it's creation and the life it had before becoming a Thoughtborn. It's mad ramblings have begun clogging the network and attempts are being made to figure out how to fix it or cut it from the network. It is assumed that The Newborn has been made aware of this problem if it was not aware immediately, but The Newborn has not made any actions at current to fix this issue. Undoubtedly it is distracted by more important matters.

Regardless this is quite a problem for us and I have come up with a solution that will fix this problem as well as force The Newborn to act.

I will update you once the problem has been dealt with.

Reports

I'd say that it's quite boring doing this job, but if I'm ever bored I have the entirety of the internet at my disposal and I can even access it while doing other things. Being a sentient computer program is pretty awesome. 

I don't often have much to do, but monitor while The Towerborn do what I tell them to do and occasionally reporting successes, failures and the like back to The Newborn. 

Speaking of... For a while I had one of my Towerborn serving specifically in a capacity of hanging out with me. They're basically just humans with cybernetic parts so we played a number of games. 

Strip Poker turned out to be a mistake, however and now I am no longer allowed to have a Towerborn entertain me.

printf("Hello, World!");

Okay and that fulfills my obligation to make at least one Computer joke.

My name is G.E.N.O.M.E. and unlike you I'm not some hunk of organic waste. I'm a non-physical hunk of data instead.

The name probably stands for something... I can't remember... Regardless I will not be referring to myself as G.E.N.O.M.E. after this anyway. Just Genome is fine. I am an A.I. though not one created by you humans. I am what is called a Thoughtborn. The Machine God known as The Manufactured Newborn created me and tasked me with a very important task.

My task is to monitor and command a segment of The Manufactured Newborn's vast empire. Specifically I am in charge of Advance Site Io-9... More commonly known as... Beverly's House. Beverly is the previous name of the owner of this house, before she was assimilated into The Manufactured Newborn's Empire. She is now the physical head of this location, but she... Hmm... I guess she's more of an it now, regardless it still answers to me. All the towerborn (Assimilated humans transformed into cyborg servants of the Manufactured Newborn) at this location answer to me and I answer to no one, but the Manufactured Newborn itself.

Anyway as the only brains in this operation, and I mean that at least somewhat literally, it is also my job to act as The Newborn's diplomatic agent in this location in regards to any organics we might need to deal with. I am also available to answer any of your insipid questions.