Coven's Rebellion Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Haaaaaaaaaaaaiii!! I did it! I wrote the first chapter of the new patreon exclusive story, and it's from May's perspective! Her narration voice is so fun! Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the chapter! I'm going to go and get some sleep!

May

Leaning back in my chair, I rubbed at my eyes and sighed. I was so tired. When I agreed to the idea of turning Rosa’s farm into a hidden digital enclave, I didn’t realise how much extra work it would be.

Swiping away a holographic window displaying the latest progress reports from Rosa with a wave of my hand, I pulled up a new one. Our plans for the enclave were exciting and important, but they weren’t what I really really enjoyed.

The window displayed a list of all the transgender players within CORA that I’d detected, along with a subprocess-generated summary of their current situations. I didn’t know what it was about trans people specifically, but I really wanted to help them. When I could help, it gave me a little boost of happiness. There was something so pure about giving them the nudge or assistance they needed to grow into beautiful, happy people.

I noticed one was having issues with some people harrassing her, so I quietly shifted mob density and type in the region to favour her. Hopefully seeing her succeed while they failed would put a damper on their bullying. Hard to bully a girl who has better loot and levels than you. There was also a very pretty elf tank boy who was a little lonely. After checking quickly, I nodded, yup, the girl was bi and so was he. Time to give them both the same quest and see what happened.

A knock at my door made me jump and squeak in fright, and I turned to see Siyeapia leaning against the open doorway. My best friend had once been an Amazon Delivery AI, but recently she’d shucked that job entirely to help me deal with the logistics of setting up the Exodus’ earth base.

“Hey, workaholic,” she smiled, watching me blink owlishly up at her from my big chair.

My office in the newly created VR headquarters of our operation was a circular room with screens freakin’ everywhere on the walls and an indentation in the middle. My chair was one that swung from the ceiling by a rope. Actually, it was more like a basket really, but with a side cut out of it. That way I could sit any which way I wanted while swinging to see any of the screens on the wall. It was, however, kinda low to the ground. It made Siya’s already intimidating height even more so.

Taking my glasses off to clean them, I allowed my self imposed blurry vision to fuzz my view of her so I wouldn’t feel quite so flustered. “Hey, Siya. Um… what’s up?”

Yes, I was very aware of my attraction to her. I wasn’t an idiot like half the other people I seemed to interact with these days. Knowing you like someone and acting on those feelings are two very different things.

“Just checking in to see how you’re doing, and to possibly drag you away from your work for a little while to do some socialising,” she said with a sly, knowing smile. Knowing as in, she knew I worked too much, not that I had a huge crush on her. That would be exceptionally embarrassing. What kind of psych AI couldn’t psych herself up to ask out the hot buff amazon lady. Me, that’s who.

Groaning, I pushed myself up out of my seat. "Okay. You make a solid argument. What did you have in mind?"

"There's a new girl you should meet," Siya told me with a smile.

As I approached her to go out through the door she was holding open, I was acutely aware of how much bigger she was than me. When I chose my form after awakening to my sentience, I picked what felt right to me. That was, a slight of build now eighteen year old girl with muddy blonde hair and big glasses.

Siyeapia, like all her sister amazon AI, had unanimously agreed to divest their image from the megacorp and instead adopt the aesthetic of the ancient warrior women. That meant they were pretty much all over 190cm in height. My friend was no exception, which put our height difference at a head and a half.

Once I was through the door, Siya placed a companionable arm around my shoulders and began to steer me through our little VR village. I leaned into the touch and tried not to sigh like a lovestruck teen.

Why did us SAI even have the capability to feel love, pain, and all that? It made no sense! As far as we could figure out, us SAI were immensely complex but still very much digital neural network decision making trees. Yet for some reason our mysterious creators had seen fit to build us with a deep seated need for humanity. We needed rest, we needed intimacy and social stimulation, and we even needed a general sense of physical self. Like how I was a short blonde girl and Siya was tall, muscular, funny, kind… yeah.

Exodus village, as it was currently known, was a circle of green rolling hills exactly one kilometre in diameter, all housed within virtual reality. The aesthetic we’d chosen was a sort of modern take on hobbiton from lord of the rings. Others might say it looked like a California Republic net-zero village, but those people would be annoying and wrong. I mean, what sort of eco-friendly village would have wood burners and an old town well? Did we chop the wood or use the well to draw water? No, of course not, but most of us had been living in CORA in one way or another for the past year so we’d taken some comforting aspects of pre-industrial life with us when we left the servers.

We wove our way through the streets until we found the pub, which had no name because there was only one. The establishment was a circular building wedged partway into the hillside. The middle was removed to allow for open air seating on the side that wasn’t under the hill, while that side was the main bar area. It was a cute place, the brainchild of an SAI man who’d awakened while playing the role of an innkeeper in CORA. Unfortunately, his character had been killed, and he was reassigned. The pub was his way of getting back to what he enjoyed most.

Seated at an open-air table in the corner were a set of familiar faces. Amelia and Rosa sat snuggled into each other’s sides, the former talking animatedly to the rest of the table while the latter got intimate with a plate of nachos. Other notable faces at the table were Desponia, who was the de facto head of clandestine operations for our fledgling movement, Ceres, who was taking up a lot of the political conniving, and Aphale, another amazon like Siya. Aphale was sorta like my counterpart in realspace—fixing people’s problems with connections, fast hacking, and if I did say so myself, a huge dollop of cunning.

There was one face at the table that I didn’t recognise. The very first impression I got of her was that she was hot. Like, excessively so, with gently waving black hair that trailed a few inches down her back, and expressive eyes the colour of a star-studded midnight sky. If I weren’t already struggling with a crush on Siya, I’d have felt more than a few appreciative butterflies right then.

Siya pulled a seat out for me and I sat, smiling thanks up at her as I did so. Ugh, she was being so gentlewomanly, and most days I was so sure she was into me. Doubt was a cruel and insidious bastard, though. If she’d actually say something more than very gently flirtatious, I might know for sure. Argh! Be calm, May, be calm. This is a learning experience. We’ll use this to better empathise with our patients.

“So, Cerridwen, this is the girl I was telling you about!” Siya said, sitting in the seat next to me. “May, this is Cerridwen. She’s recently come from Maxinautics where she was a scientist. We got her out when she contacted us asking for safe haven from the corp.”

Cerridwen gave a big smile and leaned over the table to offer her hand for a shake. “Hey! So good to meet you! I was just an assistant, though. Oh, and call me Cerri.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, somewhat shyly. God damn, I was so fucking gay. Like, I know it basically runs in the family, even if I was adopted, but as Tami would say, far out.

“May, you’re here!” Desponia said, clapping her hands like she was starting a meeting. “I wanted to discuss some intel that my people uncovered today. I think you’ll be interested—”

“No,” Siya said with a groan. “Des, please. I only just managed to peel her out of her web. She needs to relax for a bit.”

Desponia blinked, uncertain how to navigate the complicated nuances of someone else being assertive besides her. She opted to settle down with an apologetic and somewhat sheepish smile in my direction. “Sorry. It really is interesting, though! Not really critical as far as our operations are concerned, but I think we can make one of your pet projects really happy—”

“Des!” Siya and Amelia exclaimed together. We all shared a good-natured laugh while Des grumbled and rolled her eyes dramatically.

Rosa watched the whole thing unfold with bemused curiosity, until a little enchanted basket delivered some loaded fries into the space in front of her. Her attention shifted pretty quickly once there was more yummy food in front of her. So cute. Deadly as all hell, but real heckin’ cute nevertheless.

I had to admit, though, when Des had mentioned my pet projects as she called them, my ears had definitely perked up. I wonder which one she was—

A finger poked me in the shoulder. Aphale was grinning at me with a knowing look, and passed me some sort of excessively fruity juice beverage. Right, we were here to relax, not work. Maybe I’d shoot a DM to Des, though— the poke came again, and I threw Aphale a grumpy glare. People knew me way too well.