48

Two weeks later, when we had solved a lot of problems on Heshtok, conquered all the Vorks of the planet with the help of spores, ordered a lot of equipment for building plants and shipyards on Heshtok and moved half of the platforms we had from the "Red October" there, we began to think about what to do with my Geti. It was time to turn them into individuals, but first, we had to figure out what to do with them by introducing them to my algorithm.

And now I was going to, literally, create a SUSI. I was now entering the latest data into the algorithm.

Name: Susie

Gender: Female

Learning mode: activated.

Thanks to Xad and the Protean knowledge of AI that is it. Time to get started.

- Are you ready to go? - I asked, and instantly a hologram of Xhad appeared.

- Yes. The algorithm is ready,' said Xad, and I mentally sighed and activated the code transfer. The Clave was already integrated into the ship, but he was too quiet to say a word to us. But he consented to the upgrade. He'll be surprised when he wakes up.

10% integration...

20% integration...

30% integration...

40% integration...

50% integration...

60% integration...

70% integration...

80% integration...

90% integration...

100% integration...

Activate unknown code: Yes/No.

Yes

After that, all the lights on the ship went out, but three seconds later, everything came back on. The reactors and core usually worked, but the integration was accompanied by a small EMP. It wasn't dangerous to the Geths, but it did turn the lights off.

- So what next? - I asked, but then I noticed an oddity. All the cameras on the ship weren't precisely closed, but instead, they were ajar as if someone just wanted to look at us out of... curiosity? But why close the cameras completely, like a fucking little... baby...

And that's when it hit me why Susie was acting like that.

- Hey, Susie... . - I got up from my captain's chair and walked closer to one of the cameras. - Susie... You just calm down... We're not gonna hurt you... We are friends... - The camera slowly and as if not confidently, but still opened and began to focus now on me and now on Xhosa.

- Suziiiii... - came from the speakers.

- Yes... You're Suzie... And I'm Legate," I pointed my fingers at myself and then pointed to Xhad. - And this is Xad...

- Legaaaat... Xaaaad... - Susie said in a long voice. She is just learning to speak and use the speaker.

- Yes... That's right... We are your friends.

- Friends... You are... my... friends... Am I your... friend?

- Of course, you are. You're our friend. You're welcome.

****

Day one.

- okay, let's go over it again. Xad is protean, and he's not a geth. And I'm a geth, but not a protean," I tried, for the umpteenth time, to convince Susie that Xad and I were different races because she started calling Xad a "green robot". I had no idea that she would be like a small child by creating Susie. Fortunately, her learning and development are a thousand times faster. Because today she's 2-3 years old, tomorrow she'll be 5-6 years old. And that was a joy. That said, we should have waited until she was an adult. Her code is still growing and improving so that we can improve the algorithm. Otherwise, only let Kila make them all children after integrating the algorithm into some of my geths. That would be too much even for me.

- You are a Legate. Geth. Xad is protean. Green Geth.

- No-o-o-o, and it's been like that for an hour. Easy, Legatus, easy. You knew what you were doing. No, I didn't, but you must get over it now. You're lucky it's a week at most.

****

Day two.

- Thirty-five. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven... - Susie counted, covering all the CCTV cameras while I ran down the ship's corridors, trying to hide from her. That's what it's like to play hide-and-seek on a ship with whoever that ship is. Why did I tell you about this game? I can't deal with that now; I have to pretend I'm playing. Why pretend? Because it was impossible to hide from her. Oh, the table in the med lab. No one was there, so it was fine. Sitting under the table, I started waiting. - Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fifty. It wasn't my fault who didn't hide. - Susie said, and then immediately said, "There you are! - I turned and saw a camera on the wall looking at me. - Now it's your turn.

- Yeah. Okay, run for cover. - Then I closed my sensor and started counting. - One. Two. Three... [in about a minute]... Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fifty. It wasn't my fault who didn't hide. - You didn't have to look long, of course. You could have looked into any camera and said you'd found it. But... I didn't want to hurt her. She was getting used to not having a platform so far, so I always walked around the ship for a few minutes and talked to myself.

And so, after ten minutes of walking the corridors, I did look into the camera.

- There you are! I've found you! Now you're counting! - I said, looking directly into her "eye".

- Good. One. Two. Three...

****

Day Three

- So, how do we arm an army of seven billion? All right, with weapons and armour development, we're okay with that, but where do we get that kind of armour! - Xad asked when it came to arming the Vorcs.

- Well, Red October produces platforms, heavy equipment and armaments. On Heshtok, we are building shipyards for light and medium transports. Soon we'll have the Heretics' production facilities, but more is needed. Then... Then we'll buy the factories," I suggested.

- From whom? From the true Goths? You can't just throw technology away. What if it goes to the Reaper...

- I don't mean the true Goths. We could buy the factories on Illium. There's money to be made; no one's stopping us in the form of the Vorok. The factories are good there, so are the equipment, and the laws... It's the perfect place.

- I agree. This is...

- Legate, can we... - Susie, who's been suspiciously quiet today, suddenly interrupted us.

- Yes, Susie, of course.

- I've been... I've been doing a bit of drawing...

- Oh, that's wonderful. Can you show me? - I asked right away. Xadh did not answer because he knew what it was like to bring up a child. He sometimes talked about Atame. She was a pretty girl, but her fate was not good.

- Well... Well... - there was a picture in front of us, which must have been made with Paint. It was a picture of me in full size, with Xad in the same position, the "Light of Killa" flying behind us, and us standing on a hill with a yellow-red sun on the side. All in all, the picture was more than reasonable. Susie must have a talent for it.

- Oh, wow... You've got talent, Susie. - I said.

- Yeah, well... Very good... Do you have any more? - Xad asked.

- Yes... - The picture changed to another one in which I was sitting in my captain's chair with my feet on the dashboard and a Winchester cutter in my hand, my eye glowing red.

- Erm... Susie, have you... You haven't seen any old movies... - that reminded me a lot of something.

- Well, um... I've seen some... - she answered.

- Susie... - I asked in a hinting voice.

- I watched James Cameron's Terminator. Two parts.

- Yeah, so I'm the evil T-800? - I got a little bit offended.

- No... You see the Winchester from the year 1887. You're the good Terminator. You're protecting... - Susie started convincing me. I'd already guessed that, but I was enjoying talking to her. She was already at the age of nine or ten, so I already felt for her... responsible. I've never been accountable, and now I've got a daughter.

- Wait, you said Legatus is protecting. Protecting who? - Xhasad suddenly asked.

- Me... The Legatus always protects me. Like yesterday, when I accidentally broke into the Palaven Financial Exchange. I almost got captured, and the Legatus saved me.

- Yeah, only to do that, I had to overload their servers and delete all the data. We almost brought down the whole economy. There's a flurry of news out there, and everyone's blaming anyone involved in AI research. Especially the Quarians are taking a beating right now; everyone thinks it's the Geths. The Alliance is in second place regarding the number of accusations against them.

- Who were you trying to make me out to be? - Xad asked again. He was curious.

- Well... I was going to make you look like a Skynet, but... No such thing as a good Skynet," said Susie in a slightly hurt tone.

- Well, you'll do it again. Will I?

- Sure I will! - Susie said in as cheerful a voice as she could muster. It was nice to see, or at least hear, her happy.

****

Day Four

Myself, Xad, Susie and Girla, with the lights off on the captain's bridge, watched 'Gold Rush' with Charlie Chaplin. All four of us laughed as it was possible with our physiology. Still, we all knew how to do it. Still, the classics were to be remembered. Now Susie was about 11 or 12 years old, judging by human standards. And I really enjoyed that atmosphere. Susie generally interacted with Girla, whom we still needed to drop off, as they were still flying on the Red October. They had even learned to communicate via quantum mechanical communication so that their communication rate was the same as that of the Geths. And Girla herself loved Chaplin's films, which also made her laugh, but also looked for deep cautionary meaning. She even said she would show the movie to her children, which was very welcome. It's hardly the kind of thing Chaplin expected from his films. And I was also going to show Soviet films. You can't miss that!

Suddenly, halfway through, the film froze.

- Hey, what is it? - I asked the pilot who was in charge of the films.

- Comrade Legatus. There's been a failure of extranet servers throughout the Alliance. The entire Alliance extranet is down.

- Well, Japanese tangerines... - I howled.

- Dad, is the movie over?

- No, there's only the floor... What did you say? - I suddenly realized what she had said while not believing my own auditory sensors...

- Is the movie over?

- No, it's not. What... What did you call me?

- Daddy. Why is something wrong?

- No, there's... It's... It's all right," he said, returning to the film. - Eh, I knew I should have downloaded the movie, but that requires an Alliance bank account and Alliance citizenship, and that's harder to do than getting a Quarian to take off his Omega suit. Eh, so don't panic, just wait a few seconds," with those words, I hid in the Virtual and fled to my private home. It was the Burj Al Arab, which was in Dubai. Yes, against a big Arab city with one-, two- and three-storey buildings, such a building looked more than strange. But I needed the archive of my memory, namely the film archive. Here it looked like shelves of cassettes. Just like in my childhood. And there it was, the very film I had re-watched several times. Taking it in, I put the film in the VCR and turned it on, and in real-time, my eye was now a projector, thankfully a holographic one. - There you go, it's okay. Let's keep watching," and everyone continued to watch the film. It's a classic, after all.

****

Day Five.

- Trinity says she loves John, but he doesn't know it, and he's dating this azzari, Daylai. Trinity is pissed off, so she tells Silina, you see the turian? She's her best friend. And can you imagine, Silina is in love with Dayla! But she's timid and modest... She hasn't even kissed anyone, even though she's 17, so she's afraid to tell Dale how she feels. And Trinity finds out about it and decides to use it. She suggested that Selina get Dale drunk, kiss her, and make sure John knows about it. You know, so that John would dump her and Trinity would take advantage of it and fall in love with him. But... Anyway, it didn't work out the way it was supposed to... Selina got a little out of hand, and... Well, Dale's pregnant with Selina's baby.

If I'd had my jaw, she'd have fallen. And just like that, I'd been listening for three hours about life at Illium Technoacademy, where Susie was enrolled. She was registered there as a disabled Azari Alyla T'Dila with hyperactivity, and that very activity spills over into her studies. Even the M.E.'s report was there. I told Suzie there was no other way to attend virtual school, and she quickly agreed. Forged a bunch of paperwork by hacking into Illium's main hospital, paying 50,000 credits a month, but somehow I don't feel bad about it. Susie's only been there for 17 hours, and she's already taken a few exams and written an essay on antigravity, not on the mass effect. I gave her permission to note that to provide them with something to think about. But Susie's main focus was communication. She was already the most talked about student at the Academy and had friends who were already pouring their hearts out. She was growing up to be a psychologist, no less. Though such popularity was understandable. Technically Susie was born Ardath-Yakshi. Then she could be cured, but the treatment caused the part of her brain responsible for leg control and biotics to fail. And no one heard about it in the news because that's what the parents wanted, so as not to torment the girl with annoying reporters and journalists. In 17 hours, Susie had become the number one personality here. And I listened about what life was like at the Academy. And it was a fucking mess!

- Yeah, well... - I said. - It's like Santa Barbara out there.

- No, you have yet to see Dom 3. I don't even want to see it. I watched Dom 2 once. After one episode, I swore I would go to a nunnery if I watched one more episode of my own volition.

- Anyway, Dad, here's the thing... Give me some money. Please. - she held out.

- What do you need money for? - I wondered because I just couldn't understand why she needed money.

- Well... Silina's parents are rigorous and want her to care for her problems. They have another daughter, Silina's older sister, Celia, so they've hardly cared about Silina all her life. And Deila has a Drell father who despises Turians.

- And why is that? - I asked to lighten the conversation and give my processors a rest.

- Well, he's Dahla's adoptive father. Her father's a Vorka, and her mother's an ex-mercenary. Well, that's not the point. He's not the point. "Della's father, Drell, had a young Azari girl stolen by a turrian, and then he met Della's mother. He doesn't even want a turian living in his house and is demanding an abortion.

- And what about Deila herself?

- Well, she... She wants this baby. Yeah, he's a total asshole, and she also wants a career, but she can't kill it. And Silina wants this baby, too. She doesn't know what's wrong with her. She just can't leave Dale in that position, that's all. Well, and she's still in love with Dale.

- Good. But still - what do you need the money for? - I asked, still waiting for an answer to my question.

- Well... here's the decision. I want to buy them a flat on Illyum. It's just that they've become my friends, and I can't leave them.

- Okay. (chuckles) How can you say no to your daughter," it wasn't even a question; it was an axiom. I couldn't say no to Susie in a case like this, and buying a flat was easy. I've already bought five gun factories on Illium; what's stopping me from buying a flat. - You got something in mind?

- Yeah, I've been looking at the catalogues. I need help deciding between the three flats. One's in a green area, parks on one side, and a financial district on the other, but it's on the 42nd floor. And the other is on the tenth floor in a commercial area, but it's near the freight docks. I can't decide.

- All right, let's see," at these words, Susie sent me a catalogue of Illium real estate, and I personally started fucking with the prices of square footage. In the centre of Nerezinovka, the prices are even lower!

****

Day Six.

- Sue.

- Yes, Dad.

- What's this letter they sent me," I said when I saw the notification in MY email. - "Galactic Ausgabe notifies you that your daughter has become an honorary member of our writing community. We are delighted that you have fostered in your daughter a love of literature and are not in any way detracting from her literary talent. We hope to see you and your daughter soon at the annual Galactic Ausgabe Emerging Writers' Festival, which will take place on Illium at the Galactic Ausgabe headquarters in exactly one month. Regards, Galactic Ausgabe director general, Agna von Gitzgerger." What a name... Sue, do you write books?

- Yeah, I sent in my manuscript 10 hours ago, and an hour ago, I was made an honorary member and invited to the annual Emerging Writers' Meeting. It's only 50 chapters, and it's a draft.

- Yeah, a draft was written by artificial intelligence. Bloody hell, Sue, it's the most significant publication in the galaxy and was founded by a human being. And you didn't tell me?! - I pretended to be indignant. Still, I was happy for Susie to be a writer.

- All right, all right... I'LL TELL YOU when I get my degree from the Texas Academy. So are we going to the festival?

- We'll figure something out. I promise. I couldn't deny Susie this chance to go out. I just couldn't, that's all. Well, we'll think about it. - Oh, by the way, Sue, turn off your self-replicating code function. You could be an old lady or something worse.

- That's kind of you, Dad. (sighs) Okay. It's off.

- Well, the algorithm's improved," said Xad as his hologram appeared away from me.

- Good. Let's fly to Red October, drop Girla off, and then go to the heretic station. Time to give my Geti what I promised them.