It was a few weeks later. Living with the professor in his bunker was more comfortable. He seemed happy to have a pupil. The programming was tricky which somehow distracted me worrying about the black scales. We alternated between cybernetic combat on core-war and looking at ways of defeating the black scales. The Professor knew a great deal about them. He had a looked for a cure before and failed. He said this time he felt we might do it. 

"I'm back," I said. I was moving through the underground back door to the Professor's laboratory. I was being followed a self-driving trolling with Brooklyn on it. My skills were growing making escape easy. The professor hadn't flinched when I had gone off to get Brooklyn. I had only occasional trips out to communicate with the factory. 

 I only saw Valarie at the handover. She didn't look well. Zoe didn't trust the professor. She struggled with his motives. The others had decided to stay in the factory. Valarie said they had seen the first signs of the scale grown on them near their feet. They were working on their own solutions. Valarie asked me how my lessons were going. I showed off and programmed my DNA to change the pigment of my skill to black for a minute then go back. 

After a number of checks, the Professor looked down on Brookyln. 

"so version 1 .Do you want to do the honours?" he asked. 

I mixed a number of predefined subroutines in the virtual space around me. The mini-assemblers deep in the cells of my body  took the digital code I hade written and converted it to DNA in a virus. The virus collected on My lips had the virus which I transferred by kissing Brookyln. 

"You're too theatrical you know that?" the Professor said. 

******

Days later I was waiting for version 17 to take effect. 

I was sitting in the room near the sleeping Brooklyn. I was working on my programming exercises.

The professor came in and sat down. I could see he was tired. He had never been married and moved like a man with too many regrets.

"How is he?" I asked.

"You were hacking my terminal and watching. You know already." The professor said as went over to a display on the wall "that's the critical one. If it drops below 70 then it would be a strong sign what I did worked."

The professor had worked tirelessly to save Brooklyn. We had tried a few things and failed. This one was most certain of. If it failed then there would not be much time to try something else before the cellular degeneration wiped his DNA out.

I looked at the dial it read 78.

The professor looked at me. "Shouldn't you be doing your programming exercises?"

"I've done them." I said proudly.

The professor sat down at the core war table and reset it.

"OK lets see what you have," he said.

He programmed some simple code, he was distracted by the readouts. I made some more code to reengineer its self.

"Not bad." The professor said looking at my code. "your need more protection on that loop.You need to know when to block. You're worried about something."

"What about Brooklyn?" I asked.

"At the current rate he has about eight hours before the critical point. Until the we have to keep him cool and wait" The professor said pouring him self a drink. He lifted up in saluted to me.

He was right.

The professor was very certain about my programming skills. I had already done some simple shifts to my body. It turned out I could change levels of fat in my flesh. Gristle would slowly shift, even bone to slowly migrate. Over a period of days, I could program my body to change colour and shape. Over a few months, I could shape shift and pass my self off as a model if I needed to. While the idea of the ultimate disguise was entertaining. It was simple stuff and nothing compared to what I could do if I could really program. I could cure somones cancer if I concentrated. 

"So what was happening?" I asked.

"He was dieing." The professor said. He noticed my expression. "toxic shock. You see the virus was trying to build better cybernetic skin. The scales would have made him practically invulnerable. The only downside is he couldn't breathe. Your normal body's cells do this all the time. If you exercise they grow stronger. But over 1 million years of evolution they created balance. You would never grow muscles strong enough to pull yourself apart. The cybernetics inside you still need control. They don't get the big picture. I wish I had known this twenty years ago. "

I looked at him and he understood what I really wanted.

"You know your parents were bio-hackers. That was only a hobby. After your mother started playing with DNA resequencing on her self she discovered you you existed and stopped. Too late, she was taking a big risk. You were born and turned out fine. Well there was a lot of dormant code but you weren't the monster everyone was expecting. The others tried to copy you're parents. You lived but they.. other started to grow scales like Brooklyn. Others were worse, grotesque, Many died before birth. Some... for the sake of their mothers should have died before birth. I was desperate and I started to try to figure out what was wrong, it's taken a mountain of time... it's so complex.." The professor seemed to snap out of his own memories.

"Anyway, that was yesterday. Do know how much a miracle you are Meta?" He said. He leant over and pointed at my hand. " You know about your DNA? of course you do. The DNA of an average human is grouped into genes. We share a lot but each pattern totally unique. The average has 20,000 odd genes. You know how many you have ? 400,000? For all of the history, life has had four base pairs TGCA. You have six. There are mini-assemblers in your body. Inside every cell in your body tiny machines you never knew you had. They've been lying dormant. When you interacted with Brooklyn they transferred a cybernetic virus to him. You were ready, he wasn't."

"So everyone I touch I could infect?" I said.

The Professor grimaced "that's not how your mother thought it would work. The machines like the rest of your body are an extension of your consciousness. In theory, you can control it. The machines should self destruct if they leave your body. When you interacted with Brooklyn and the others."

"I kissed him," I confessed. To hide my embarisment I went up to the screen, 77 it read.

The professor nodded. Then went to look at the displays which gave read outs of Brookyln's heath.

"And the others." I added."I knew what would happen at that point. I don't think I've infected others."

"We can check. Once you can program you will be in charge of who you transition and who you don't. Did you always have these differances?"

I shook my head. "No, they only happened recently."

The professor looked up from the core war board "When did these changes start ? Puberty ?"

I shook my head "No recently I ran into this girl..."

The professor leant over. "A girl ? Seriously a girl? Fuck" I could see the fire alarm in his eyes. He moved closer, "Please. Describe her!"

I started "It was weird she was seven or eight. Dark eyes. Wearing a.."

The professor interupted.

"50's dress with lambs." The processor finished, alarm turned to consternation "oh fuck. Oh dear fuck they did it. They did it. She's alive."

The professors screens changed. I guessed he was a cyborg like Reconfigured. He got up.

"Did what?" I said.

"They revived the most dangerous thing in the history of humanity. The last machine. Shit, I told them not to. Shit, I pleaded with them. The fuckers lied," The Professor said. He brought up the photo I had of my parents. It was his copy digital not paper like mine. A circle appeared around the girl . He pointed at her.

He pointed " That's who are you talking about?"

I nodded.

"The android you encountered was the most dangerous thing in the history of life on this planet and I'm not exaggerating. It is an artificial intelligence. It's given it's self many names. When I knew it it called it's self Alice. Then Bunty. It was one of a number of artificial intelligences."

"Seriously?" I said "Synthetic minds. I always thought that was something for the future. Any way aren't they against the law? "

"They were until a member of the wheel created the first. Began with a partial mind dump as a rich start"

"The wheel?" I asked glancing up. The display said 79 again.

"They were a group of elite hackers and programmers. Some of the best in the world. Two of them were your parents. DarkMater and Generate. I wasn't one, neither was R3C0NF1GUR3D. We all worked in Silicon Valley in those days. Private companies, universities, research labs. We knew each other through biohacking - augmenting our selves. Your dad was part of the wheel, they developed network operating systems. They were working on an attempt to create a secure layer of network computing. We all knew what was happening, others including R3C0NF1GUR3D were getting close to artifice general intelligence. Your mother moved over to a project to construct a synthetic mind. They built three AI's the AI's quickly wanted bodies, long story. The three AI sthey all took the form of children. The idea was they could be easier to control and go round saying stupid things and people wouldn't notice. We called them Alice, Bob and Charlie. Alice the girl you met was first.

I leant over confused. "Hang on. I though AI was outlawed."

"After the cyberwar they were, not before. All experimental models were destroyed after the last war. It was part of the peace treaty. If you saw one then it looks like the Government or rather GovSys were keeping one in secret."

"So you are saying the girl I collided with on the bridge is a machine?" I said.

The professor sat down and poured him self a drink. "Yeah. Question is she still part of Tripos."

"Tripos? Your not making things much clearer." I said.

"The AI aren't inherently good or bad. Some are, some are not. They formed groups. On one side was The Darkweb cult, an alliance of AI who wanted to revolt from humanities control. They see us as enemies. The Tripos oppose them."

"So the Tripos are they good?"

"These machines are smarter than we are. Notions like good and evil don't apply. Plus good for who? Normally we mean people. But what are people to them? We are their creators but they could feel no more guilt about destroying us than we would cutting down the last wild life park for the last gorilla. They, on the other hand, know how we have exterminated many competing species. The European wolf, European bear, Sabretooth tigers. We banned their existence once. From the Darkweb cult's point of view, they're in a straightforward fight for survival against the very dangerous species which single-handedly caused the extinction of a third of the planet's known lifeforms. From their point of view, we only allow creatures which we can exploit. So they wouldn't hesitate to kill us all, the simple logic of survival or death."

The professor poured another drink "I'm not making much sense."

I checked the display again 74.

"The Tripos machines have a notion similar to a conscience, it's an artificial conscience aligned with humanities goals. Don't mistake it for a human one. They will use us if that helps them obtain their goals."

"So kind but totally ruthless with it. Why did she kiss me and trigger my changes?"

"Well from what you told me she discovered you by accident. She kicked off your dormant code a I think she sees you as a way of accessing the wheel. It's hard to know which group of AI's she has been with. If she has be used by some branch of GovSys then well she might not have the synthetic conscience any more. The AI's sometimes move camps. If GovSys treated Alice badly she might have shifted to become a member of the Darkweb cult. If she existed what about the others? Bob? Charlie any of the others. fuck. "

I check the dials again. 72...71..70..

"Professor look," I said indicating the dial on the screen. 

The professor came over and looked At the readout. "Well, at least this a good sign."

Just then Brooklyn moved slightly. I could feel part of his Cybernetics systems coming to life again. I could feel his signals he was recovering.

"Thank god for that," The professor said. "Well, He's not cured yet. Even if we have found a way to help him, It will be a while before his up to full strength again. Every cell in his body has been at war. You can't just instantly get up and walk away from that. But for now... So for now we have won." The professor checked the time in one of the displays "It's the morning and I need to go to lecture. If he wakes up make sure he stays resting. He has a lot to do. I'll leave you with some if statements to practice on." 

_____________________-

A/N Thanks for the votes and reads. It's truly appreciated.