Quantum Cultivation by Jace Kang (simple e reader TXT) 📕

Kentaro shook his head. “There’s no such thing as a hacker anymore.”

If only the Purebred knew about the handful of people like her. If Aya’s EtherCloud Avatar could laugh, she would. Despite her best efforts, her projection did. “Watch this.” With a few waves of her hand, she sent code through the tether to erase Ryusuke—no, Ishihara—and Kentaro from the camera feed, and then  projected a new image of them into the hall beside them.

Gasping, the man extended a finger and touched the image of himself, then jerked his hand back. “There’s nothing there.”

“I’ve hidden you from their cameras, and I am sending these holograms back the way you came. That will give you some time to get to the main level.”

“What about the force field?” Kentaro went to lean against the invisible barrier.

Leaving another app controlled by an AI to maintain control of the projectors, she moved to the Building Operations partition of the EtherSpace, which appeared as a fortress with the same layout as Peacekeeper Central. She went to their current location and lifted the gate representing the force field.

Ken stumbled as the force field disappeared.

Chuckling, Ryusuke—might as well think of him as Ryusuke—caught him.

Face flushing hot, Kentaro pointed a finger at her projection. “How do we know you aren’t leading us into a more dangerous trap?”

Ryusuke nodded. “It’s hard to trust someone whose name I don’t know, and who probably doesn’t look the way he appears. For all I know, you’re catfishing us.”

Whatever ‘catfishing’ meant. And a name…she’d have to assign Ai to research a good name. Aya threw up the Transcendent’s hands. “You don’t have a choice, if you don’t want to be caught. You have about three minutes to reach the exit before the Ministry of Defense shocktroopers have Peacekeeper Headquarters surrounded. And you’ll still have to fight your way through anyone who can see you with their own eyes.”

“Fine.” Ryusuke took Kentaro’s hand, stirring Aya’s jealousy, and pulled him toward the maglift.

“All right,” she said. “Head down the corridor.”

When they continued on their way, she activated the force field behind them, brought the maglift down to their level, and opened the doors. With a dubious eye, Ryusuke stepped in, followed by an even more dubious Kentaro.

“What should I call you?” Ryu asked, studying the Transcendent’s virile projection waiting in the corridor.

“Ficus Religiosa,” she said, blurting out the first name that her fox spirit Ai suggested. Apparently, it was some kind of rare tree associated with enlightenment.

Kentaro exchanged a perplexed expression with Ryusuke before turning back. “What kind of name is that?”

“Bodhi,” she said a thousandth of a second after Ai provided the common name of the tree. “You can call me Bodhi. Now, wait a second while I scout ahead.” Operating too many apps in different partitions, she released her control of the projector, closed the doors, and sent the maglift up toward the main level.

For now, her lungs were holding up in the real world, and no one in the EtherSpace suspected the Level Two Operator moving between the Operations and Communications partitions was really an outsider. Commandeering the cameras, she scanned the Peacekeeper Headquarters’ vaulting entrance hall. Dozens of officers in unenhanced burgundy uniforms bustled about, several watching footage of the holograms of Ryusuke that she’d projected into the medical wing. Six waited at the maglift, most likely on their way to reinforce their comrades. Their side arms remained holstered.

With that information, she looked back into the maglift camera, where Kentaro and Ryu stood as close as lovers. One of the elder’s hands pushed on the kid’s ass, while the other pressed his belly.

If she didn’t know any better, she’d think a pit of jealousy was forming in her real body.

Maybe it was jealousy, because Ryusuke’s lithe but sculpted form was nothing short of magnificent, like the holograms she programmed beyond her firewall. If only she could feel their actual touch.

“Better,” Ishihara said. “You need to tilt your hips forward to open up your Governing vessel.”

Was this some kind of weird kink? Shaking the notion out of her head, Aya spoke through the maglift’s speaker. “All right. I have information for you.”

Both men startled.

Ryusuke’s head raked back and forth. “Where are you, Bodhi?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She transferred an image of the activity on the main level to another projector. “There are six unsuspecting Peacekeepers waiting outside the maglift doors.  Another thirty-two are moving about the entrance hall.”

Ryusuke’s eyes roved over the scene, expression somewhere between amazed and calculating.

Expecting more of his fighting prowess, she decided it was time to test out the adaptive combat algorithms she’d copied from the Peacekeeper’s prototype tactical suit.

The doors slid open.

The six unarmored Peacekeepers stood there, their chatter coming to an abrupt end. They reached for their sidearms, but before they could draw, Ryusuke was swimming among them, slapping their bellies in a mesmerizing whirlwind of palms.  All six collapsed.

The Purebred boy peeked out of the maglift, but ducked back when particle beams from several of the remaining Peacekeepers crisscrossed the hall.

None hit Ryusuke.

How was this even possible? With swipes of her EtherCloud hands inside her virtual Shell, Aya recreated the hall from the current camera feeds, sped up her perception to slow time to quarter speed, and set her Avatar in the simulation.

Ryu moved like a torrent, never pausing as he spun through the shots as he closed the distance.

Still, all it took was one shot. Maybe she could help him.

“Ai,” Aya said, “Project me as a copy of Ryu on top of him, and smooth my motions to imitate his.”

It was a program that was coded into the AI of the Peacekeeper’s prototype tactical suit, which she’d lifted a few months ago. She’d since integrated it into Ai’s code as a subroutine. In