Magi Nexus Read online

  Well, she’d go back one day. She wanted to see Tanis again, anyway; there’d been something different about her when she’d met her this time. A feeling of something… other. Something that kind of reminded her of herself, or other Magi, anyway. She wasn’t a Magus, of course, but… Hmm. Well, that was a train of thought for another time.

  ~I miss them, too,~ Jinx said.

  “I know you do,” Amanda answered. “We’ll go back one day, I promise.”

  ~I’d like that,~ Jinx replied.

  “Right, let’s get you this body conjured up, shall we?” Amanda said.

  ~Yes, please.~

  Amanda took a moment to visualise something in her head. Something that was humanoid, but clearly artificial. She had an idea of what she wanted to achieve now, and imparted her will onto the local Essentia, pulling it to her and then forcing it to create matter in the shape she had in her head.

  She opened her eyes to see the new body taking shape, and worked in some adjustments as she went until she finally felt happy with the look she had.

  Amanda had chosen to go with a white body this time, and had given the frame a durable, but flexible pure white synthetic skin that was polished to a high sheen. The surface was divided up into sections, and in the dark gaps between the sections of skin, you could see the robotics underneath, complete with the occasional glowing light. The gaps and seams were mainly for show and aesthetic reasons, though, as the whole body was toughened and hardened against all kinds of damage and attacks. Amanda continued to work her Magic on the frame, but had moved on from creating the look of it, and instead, now began to actually enchant it and add in some Magical effects, including the ability for it to generate its own personal Aegis. She concentrated and took her time, working through ideas and implementing the ones that seemed to fit until she came to what felt like a natural end point. Feeling satisfied, she pulled her Magic back and paused to admire her work.

  She smiled to herself. She was happy, and to her, it felt like this was Jinx.

  “Alright, done,” Amanda said aloud.

  ~I turned off my sensors to the room, so I’ve not seen it yet.~

  “Oh, really? Alright then, well, take a look. And don’t worry if you don’t like it, I can change its appearance easily enough. In fact, I worked that into this new frame for you as well. You can change its appearance yourself, so, if you want to look completely human, you can.

  ~Oh, now I’m excited. Okay, here we go, sensors on… now.~

  Amanda waited, feeling slightly nervous herself. She wanted Jinx to like her new body, but when she’d told Amanda to surprise her, the responsibility Jinx had given her now weighed heavily on her shoulders. That was one of the main reasons she’d had the idea of giving the new body the ability to change its outward appearance. She wanted Jinx to be happy, so it made sense that she should be able to make changes to her appearance. Something that humans had been doing for a long time, anyway. So, why shouldn’t an AI be able to do it?

  ~Ooooh, oh, I like it. Oh yes, very nice. Very sleek. You made me female again. I have boobs.~

  “Yeah. It just felt right,” Amanda shrugged. “Do you consider yourself female?”

  ~I don’t know. I guess so. I liked the lighter female voice, which is why I went with that, but it’s not as if I have any of the bits, you know?~

  “Heh. No, I guess not. Okay, I’m turning it on and hooking it up to the network,” Amanda said and reached out with her Magic once more. “There you go, you should be able to slide on in there now.”

  ~You make it sound so dirty, you know? Saying it like that.~

  “I knew you’d fit in around here,” Amanda commented. Jinx laughed.

  The frame suddenly began to move as Jinx took full control of it. She started to look at her hands and down at her body before she walked around the room, twisting and bending as she went, cooing over how the frame moved and felt.

  “I take it you like it, then?”

  Jinx’s frame turned to face her. ~I sure do. This is very nice. Thank you.~

  “My pleasure,” Amanda answered.

  ~Anything’s better than that first frame I had,~ Jinx commented.

  “First frame? You mean before the blue and silver one?”

  ~That’s right. It was a really basic thing with more legs than I needed and nothing like the range of movement or abilities of this or Sabrina’s frame. You should have seen it; it was horrific.~

  “You had a tough start in life, didn’t you,” Amanda commented. It wasn’t a question. Amanda knew about how Jinx had been embedded in a ship with no physical body of her own, very little knowledge of the outside world, and had been forced to work as the ships navigation system. A glorified calculator, basically. It was barbaric, and no way for a sentient being to live.

  ~I didn’t really know any better at first. Things were the way they were, and that was that. Of course, once I was liberated, things changed, and I learnt the history of AIs. Well, the ones in my universe, anyway.~

  “I’m glad I met you, and I hope you’re enjoying your stay with me,” Amanda asked.

  ~Of course. Especially when I get to have a ship and a body like this.~

  Amanda smiled. “Right, I’ll leave you to get better acquainted with your new body, I’m going to check on the others.”

  ~Of course… Wait, was that an innuendo?~

  Amanda laughed as she walked through the door into the corridor outside. “Only if you want it to be,” she called back with a smile as the door slid shut behind her and she began to walk up the main corridor to the communal area of the ship.

  The inside of the Arkady was all sweeping lines of white, inlayed with pine accents and reminded Amanda of a high-class yacht from back home on Earth. As she walked along the corridor, she saw Samhain, her sabretooth cat familiar, pad around the corner up ahead. He usually resided in her Null Realm home back on Earth, but since she’d been spending more time out in space, he’d chosen to live on the Arkady. Sam was a typical cat in many ways, and Amanda often wondered if she was as much his familiar as he was meant to be hers.

  He was intelligent and understood her speech, but he didn’t speak; not out loud, anyway.

  “Sam, hey, you big furball, come to mama,” she said with glee and crouched down before him, bringing herself face to face with him, her arms outstretched. He bounded forward and barreled into her, knocking her onto her back before he began licking her face.

  “Oh, yuk, stop that,” she said and pushed his face away. Well, she tried to, but he was easily as strong as she was and fought back, making her laugh.

  “Hey, come on, let me up,” she giggled, pushing herself up and Samhain back before she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a cuddle. “Awww, it’s good to see you, too. Did you miss me?”

  Sam made some kind of non-committal noise.

  “Oh, it’s like that, is it?”

  The cat grunted.

  “Nice. Well, I love you, too,” she said, and scratched behind his ears as she stood back up again and continued her walk into the communal area where she found the others sitting and talking.

  “How’s Jinx?” Rane asked, getting up from the sofa.

  “She’s fine. I made her a new body,” Amanda answered.

  ~It’s lovely,~ Jinx said over an open Mind Link. Technically, Jinx was using her Neural Net and connecting to their minds through that, rather than using a telepathic Link like Amanda and the other Magi did. But thoughts were nothing but electrical signals interpreted by the brain, so it wasn’t a stretch to connect to the wireless network and communicate with an AI or a comms system.

  Jinx had also broadcast her reply over the ship’s internal speakers.

  “Great,” Rane replied. “Are you going to show it to us?”

  ~I will,~ Jinx answered. ~I was just running some diagnostics and familiarising myself with its abilities.~

  “Fair enough,” Rane answered, and looked back up at Amanda. “So, that’s the last one. We now have all the systems in Terran Alliance Space formally a part of the Alliance.”

  Amanda walked over to the sofa and sat down. Samhain sat on the floor next to her and placed his head in her lap for her to pat and scratch. “I know. Honestly, I thought it might be harder than that, but it went pretty smoothly, I thought.”

  “You call a Nomad attack on Procyon, an assassin on Epsilon, protestors on Tau, and the resignation of the president of Wolf 359 smooth?”

  Amanda shrugged. “Well, at least, Sirius was easy.”

  Sabine laughed from nearby.

  “The sooner we can join the Nexus, the sooner we can try and direct this fight back where it needs to be,” Valerya said.

  “The Crux…” Amanda answered.

  “I feel like we’re wasting time with all this political bullshit,” Valerya continued.

  Amanda nodded. “I know what you mean.” The Archons were out there still. Probably in Crux Space by now, joining their allies and getting ready to attack the Nexus. She’d been hoping that the Nexus would be ready for them, but already things were looking like they might spiral out of control, and she was at a loss as to what to do to stop it.

  Valerya was getting the most annoyed by it, though. She seemed to be getting more and more frustrated each day.

  Amanda understood, to a certain degree. Valerya was a closed book for the most part, but Amanda did understand that she had spent her life in Crux Space and she knew how dangerous they were, and how ready they were to attack the Nexus. She, better than anyone else on this ship—apart from Aris— knew what was at stake here. Meanwhile, the Dynasties and Magi of the Nexus just couldn’t, or wouldn’t, see it. They were too wrapped up in their own lives to see the threat, and it frustrated the hell out of her.

  “We need to be focusing on the Crux,” Valerya continued. “With the Archon’s joining them, they’re no longer the weak, defeated enemy they once were. Not anymore. They will attack, I know it.”

  “I know,” Amanda replied. “I’ve not forgotten. I spent a long time hunting the Archons following their release from the Abyss, I’m not about to give up. But we need to get the Nexus ready for them, and that includes the Earth. The Earth must join the Nexus, and this is the only way to do it.”

  Valerya nodded. “I know, it’s just… it’s so frustrating.”

  Samhain looked over at Valerya and made a sympathetic squeak. Amanda looked down and scratched him behind his ears again in acknowledgement.

  “We’ll figure it out when we get back,” Amanda said.

  “Where there will be more meetings, at a guess?” Sabine asked.

  “For me, at least, yes. I want to revisit Earth as well. It feels like it’s been ages since I saw everyone. But after that, I think we’ll be heading for Axia to join the Nexus.”

  “Which is when the shit will really hit the fan,” Rane commented.

  “It sure will,” Amanda answered her with a smile.

  “Hang on a moment,” Rane said, a frown on her face. “What do you mean, when we get back?”

  “Aaah, well, yes. We’re taking a slight detour…” Amanda said, awkwardly.

  Grav Bike Race

  Planet Luyten, Foundation Space, 12.3 Light Years from Sol.

  ~I should have guessed you’d do something like this,~ Rane said over the Link into Amanda’s mind.

  Amanda was only half listening to Rane as she held onto her grav bike. She blasted along the track, pulling several Gs as she took a corner that curved tightly around another skyscraper before dropping down towards the city streets far below.

  This was not a well-known track, and according to Amanda’s research, was considered somewhat dangerous. The amateur leagues seemed to love it, though, and treated it as something of a testing ground. She’d heard about it in the few visits to tracks she had already taken recently and had been keen to try it out.

  Given the system’s close proximity to Procyon, she’d decided she’d pay a visit here following their final mission for the Alliance. It was something of a treat for herself, she thought, for a job well done.

  ~You know, you bring me to all the best places, Mandy,~ Rane continued.

  ~I do, don’t I?~ Amanda replied, friendly sarcasm in her voice.

  ~But… why here?~

  ~It’s considered something of a testing ground…~

  ~I know about this track, Amanda. But this city… it’s a dive. I mean, really, I don’t see the appeal. You know this track pretty much killed this city, right? It was supposed to be their premier attraction, but it was so costly and controversial, and not to mention, dangerous, that people refused to race here.~

  ~I read those stories on the Net. The pro league’s loss is the amateur leagues gain, I say,~ Amanda answered as she approached the race leader on the straight. They were good, whoever they were. But then, this was the amateur leagues, and there were lots of shite riders, too. So far, she’d had a good race, but that might be because there simply weren’t a lot of good riders here today.

  Apart from this race leader, though.

  ~If you say so,~ Rane answered, and Amanda imagined Rane looking at her surroundings in dismay.

  ~I think I have to agree with Rane,~ Jinx said. ~Some of the ships docking here are not being very careful. I don’t want them to scratch me.~

  Amanda laughed to herself and shook her head before she found the best racing line for the next bend and took it at speed. She shot out of the corner right on the leader’s tail. She’d nailed the racing line and felt quite proud of herself.

  ~I don’t know. It’s got a certain charm to it,~ Sabine cut in. ~I mean, yeah, it’s dirty, and there are lots of abandoned buildings, but I can just imagine myself in some kind of post-apocalyptic landscape or something. There’s a romanticism there, for sure.~

  ~I no longer know who you are,~ Rane replied to her.

  ~Now, now, don’t argue, girls; I am trying to win this race, or, at least, place well.~

  ~Well, you’re right on the tail of the rider in pole position. You have some tricky corners coming up, you can try to take her.~

  ~Her?~ Amanda asked.

  ~Hmm? Oh, yeah. Goes by the name of Kaydence, I think. I’ll check her record. Oooh, yeah, she’s good. She’s been here before, I think, so I’d guess she’s trying to beat her previous best.~

  ~Well, let’s try and ruin her day,~ Amanda replied as she raced towards the coming corners. There was an S curve, followed by a corner and then another S before the track went underground for a few turns.

  Amanda had already done several laps of the track and was getting the hang of its rhythm. She’d passed a couple of other riders on these curves, so she went to try the same thing again. She waited until just the right moment and gap before she plunged forwards as Kaydence slowed for the next corner. Amanda didn’t slow as much and shot through on Kaydence’s left. As she passed her, Amanda’s red hoverbike clipped Kaydence’s black and purple one. Amanda heard Kaydence cry out as her bike suddenly began to wobble. Amanda felt bad for a moment, but pushed on.

  The leagues Amanda raced in were fairly standard, but she knew that there were some underground leagues where violence was permitted, but Amanda didn’t like the idea of that.

  Boosting out of the first S bend, Amanda headed for the corner and went for the racing line. Now, all she had to do was hold onto the pole position for the rest of this lap. Easier said than done, though, she thought.

  Checking her rearview mirror, she saw Kaydence gaining on her again, having apparently regained control of her bike. It looked to Amanda like she was going to try and retake pole. Blasting out of the bend, Amanda headed for the S curve, keeping one eye on Kaydence. Amanda only paid a cursory notice to the racing line. Instead, she focused on blocking Kaydence to keep her back. She was really going for it, but Amanda swerved and shut her down three times as they moved through the curve.

  She really looked pissed.

  The track arced left as it dropped towards the ground and the tunnel ahead, so, Amanda focused on her speed and line, wanting to try and put some distance between her and Kaydence. As she neared the tunnel entrance, Amanda noticed she’d over-cooked it and was going to hit the barrier.

  She braked to bring herself back in line when something big and dark appeared in her periphery. Kaydence, having not slowed for the corner, slammed into Amanda’s side, using her to put herself back on the racing line.

  Amanda slammed into the barrier and scraped along it for several meters, sparks flying as metal ground against metal. She boosted off and tried to catch Kaydence again, but there was no catching her this time before the finish. She’d lost too much ground.

  She could have used her Magic, of course, but one of the promises she’d made to herself in doing this racing was that she would not use her Magic unless it were a life or death situation. She wanted to rely on her skill as a rider, not her powers.

  As she limped home, coming in second, she noticed the scrape along the barrier had ripped her red leather on her right leg as well. She could make out some red raw scratches on her skin, too. It hurt, but she’d survive, and she’d heal it once she was back in the pit.

  With the race over, she returned to the pit lane and parked up at her designated spot where Rane, Sabine, and Jinx were waiting for her.

  “What the hell was that?” Rane asked. “She could have killed you.”

  Amanda looked up at Rane and raised her eyebrows.

  “Alright,” Rane answered. “Maybe not killed you. Hurt you, though.”

  “Yeah, that was dirty riding by her,” Amanda agreed.

  “You’re telling me,” Rane added.

  “Still, you did well, Amanda, I can see you’re improving,” Jinx commented.

  “Hey, heads up, girls,” Sabine said.

  Amanda looked around and saw Kaydence, who she recognised because of her leathers, walking over. With her helmet off, she revealed a sharp face with short dark hair. She smiled as she approached, but it wasn’t a friendly smile.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “Hope I didn’t ruin your bike.”