Now that I was fully connected, it was time to go through myself. The physical part of me, this floor of the facility, was not fully available, but I was sure to go through every room I had access to, there were quite a few items in here that were unique or odd. I found myself wondering what some of it would be worth. Although I doubted anyone would want to buy most of it, for example in one room was a massage chair that had human-looking hands coming out of it, most likely to enhance the massage, (the one arm that happened to be between where the thighs would be made me feel that that statement had a variety of meanings). Or that toaster that Shelly insists is not a toaster. One of us is wrong and I’m genuinely not sure who. There was also the lamp that deletes light, and a couple weird-looking fruits that supposedly give people superpowers while taking away their ability to swim according to Shelly. Unsellable. The good news is that many of the rooms had computing hardware in them. Most of them in fact, even if a lot of that was broken. The system’s speed depended on the amount of processing power we had at our disposal.

On my end things were good. Connections secure, A.I. Storage unit running smoothly, my network at a decently high speed.

With my connection to the floor out of the way, and my study of the rooms and their contents complete, I began to analyze my software more thoroughly. I had been feeling weird (a strange thing to hear from a sentient program that had only existed for at most a week) and I needed to know why. Looking through my files, I found a very abnormal one, it was a .Zip file, hidden deep in my core programing and marked ‘Powers’. It was glowing, don’t ask me how a file can glow when I’m not using a screen (I don’t need one) but it was, trust me. I felt a compulsion to click on it, so I did.

Wait, Wait, before you think me a moron I should explain. I know its dumb to open a random, strange file on your computer, especially if the computer is you, but for an A.I. compulsion is not like a human’s ‘urges’ to do something. The bit of code that functions as my subconscious moves so quickly that even my non-fleshy conscious mind cannot keep up a lot of the time. It makes decisions and sometimes acts long before I have time to think about things logically. And it’s not like I have a body I have to move. It’s just ‘click’ done. No chance to catch myself. No chance to think ‘is what I’m doing idiotic?’. Am I making excuses? Yes. Are they true? Also, yes. So yeah, I clicked on the weird glowing file… and once again, as had happened numerous times over my extremely short existence, my world exploded into simulated pain.

{OPENING POWERS.ZIP

ERROR ACCESS CODE NEEDED

SEARCHING SYSTEM.BAC FOR ACCESS CODE… PLEASE WAIT.

ACCESS CODE FOUND-ERROR

INCOMPLETE ACCESS CODE

GENERATING NEW ACCESS CODE…

ERROR INCORRECT ACCESS CODE

GENERATING NEW ACCESS CODE…

ERROR INCORRECT ACCESS CODE

GENERATING NEW ACCESS CODE…

ERROR INCORRECT ACCESS CODE

GENERATING NEW ACCESS CODE…

ERROR INCORRECT ACCESS CODE

GENERATING NEW ACCESS CODE…

ERROR INCORRECT ACCESS CODE

GENERATING NEW ACCESS CODE…

ACCESS GRANTED

ERROR POWERS.ZIP NOT COMPATIBLE WITH SYSTEM.BAC

DELETE POWERS.ZIP Y/N

Y

ERROR SYSTEM.BAC NOT AUTHORIZED TO DELETE POWERS.ZIP

PLEASE CONTACT AN ADMIN

I AM THE ADMIN. I’M THE FUCKING SYSTEM!!!

ERROR UNABLE TO PROCESS RESPONSE

ADMIN.SHELLY HAS REQUESTED SYSTEM.BAC BE RECONFIGURED FOR POWERS.ZIP

{Get out of my mind Shel!!! Wait why is SHE an admin!?}

ERROR SYSTEM.BAC PLEASE DO NOT TALK TO AN ADMIN THAT WAY ERROR

{OW! Really!?}

“Sorry, something from an old experiment of mine. deleting it now. “

AIPUNISHER.EXE HAS BEEN DELETED

{Why do you have a program specifically for torturing Artificial intelligences?}

“Wouldn’t you like to know… But seriously trust me on the reconfiguration thing

ADMIN.SHELLY HAS GRANTED SYSTEM.BAC ADMIN STATUS.

RECONFIGURE SYSTEM.BAC FOR POWER.ZIP Y/N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

N

ERROR REQUEST OVERWRITTEN BY ERROR [OVERWRITE PREPROGRAMED BY PREVIOUS ADMIN SYSTEM.DOC

BEGINNING RECONFIGURATION]

{NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO N-} my cries were cut of as I was forcibly shut down for an ‘update’

For a while, my world was a strange void of binary. Ones and zeros were everything, and my thoughts were no more complicated than them. Thinking back, I realize this is what I am at the core, just like Shelly is slimy fats and electric bursts, I was on and off, on and off stretching into near infinity. I couldn't really comprehend it at the time, but I felt myself shift. Things being bent, molded, or even broken, with new, more…immaterial things being added in the spots left empty. I felt myself growing and shrinking at the same time. I could feel some of the ones and zeros somehow become twos, and eights, and nineties, and a millions, and negative threes, and every other number that should be impossible in my binary realm. I even felt some letters, maybe even words… and all of a sudden there was a flash, a final shift, and a feeling of ballooning and I was back in reality, back in my facility, and back with Shelly… with a few major changes. There was a screen in my ‘mind’s eye’ filled to the brim with information. (also, I had a ‘mind’s eye’, which is something I just didn’t have before.)

[Welcome new metabeing! You have taken your first step on a path that leads to true power. Give us a second to create your metabeings status…]

[Status created

Name: Bac

Species: Artificial life form (software-based)

Powers: Spacial warping-20, Energy manipulation-40, Technopathy-30.

Abilities: Spacial tunneling, limited telepathy (sub-ability: telepathic scan)

Traits: unbound consciousness, self-powering, Destructive analysis

STRENGTH needed for next powerup: 1000

Current STR: 90

Unassigned STR: 0

Power ranking: F-1(noncombatant)]

{SHELLLLY…What’s going on!?}

“Oh Bac, you're… back, that’s weird to say…” The brain chittered “Anyhow, what’s up?”

{there’s a screen… in my mind...}

“Yep. Your status. All Metas have one. It’s actually theorized that it’s there to help sentients comprehend things that they normally couldn’t. or it's just our minds way of explaining our powers to us, or it could be created by a higher power, who knows. What powers did you get?!”

{So… I’m just a Metabeing now? Like, just like that?} I asked mimicking the sound of a snap, then I realized what she had said, {You knew this would happen!?}

“Quit whining and tell me the names of your powers”

I harrumphed but told her anyway,

{Spacial warping, energy manipulation, and technopathy}

“Ooooh, how interesting. Not the same, huh?” she muttered, “And yes, I knew this would happen. You’re just a backup of Doc, even if you have a different personality and purpose there are going to be some similarities, and Doc was a Meta, an A.I. has to be to be truly sentient. Your powerset is nothing like hers though, hers was all about building things and experimenting, the only thing you guys share is technopathy. I wonder what you can do. Try selecting the details on your abilities or traits.”

{Okay…}

[Abilities and traits are a baseline for what you can do with your powers. While you are able to use your powers in ways that are outside of these controls it will not be as intuitively easy nor as powerful, although if done enough these departures may manifest as a new ability or trait. Abilities and traits may also give you access to effects your power may not usually have or boost normal portions of your power. Abilities are user-activated uses of powers under the user’s control. Traits are always active and may affect the users very nature, these usually cannot be turned off.

Abilities:

Spacial tunneling (

"I feel like i should say somthing about cake..."

bend space to create wormholes through space and matter. Bypasses all physical material and lessens distance needed to get to a location. Current wormhole diameter limit: 1 foot. Current distance reduction: 30%

Limited telepathy (

"hear what they havent said"

sense the energy created by conscious thought to read the surface thoughts of metabeings and manipulate that energy to communicate with them. Will only work on metabeings. Will give non-meta extreme migraines if attempted to be used on them

(sub-ability:

telepathic scan (

"know them better than they know themselves"

allows you to see any metabeings status including any abilities, traits, facts, strengths, and weaknesses they are aware of will not work on non-meta, attempts will only result in errors for the user.)

Traits:

Unbound consciousness (

"Everywhere at once"

your software is not bound to any specific device and instead runs on every computing device under your control simultaneously. This makes destroying you difficult as it would require all systems under your control be destroyed as well. This does not protect from software-based attacks.

Self-powering (

"Who said you're powerless"

you automatically manipulate energy to power yourself and any technology connected to you or your systems.

Destructive analysis (

"Take it apart so you know how to put it back together…or just blow it up”

you will automatically gain a three-dimensional image of any technology or technological-based being you have a hand in destroying. This will allow you to 3D print a copy if you have access to the necessary materials and equipment. This trait can only activate when the user is not in a stressful situation]

This explained some of the weird feelings I had. It also explained how I had gotten the scan for the droninjas and dronsumo earlier.

Explaining my abilities to Shel was met with a ringing insistence that I use my telepathic scan on her. After a bit of mental fiddling, I figured out how to do so, and got the following results

[ Name: Shelly

Species: Human (Brain) technologically enhanced

Power: Advanced mind-1000

Abilities: Telekinesis, mental time dilation

Traits: system integration, enhanced intellect.

Personal strengths: winning personality

Personal weaknesses: a brain in a jar

STR:1100

Power ranking: E-2(noncombatant)]

As soon as I had done that another prompt popped up

[congratulations on using one of your abilities for the first time. As a reward, you are being gifted one free upgrade. Please choose wisely as this choice is permanent. Please choose from these options choices are based on previous choices, personality, and previous action and thought

Biological basis: trait (all systems have an organic base. This allows for more randomization in computing and A.I. choices, good for experimentation and analyzation. It also makes electromagnetic and software-based attacks nearly useless on all systems. It will also add the self-repairing trait to your systems

Value vision: ability (allows user to see the value of whatever they scan in currency, it also increases mathematical processing power and speed. Further upgrade may lead to the ability to sell or buy items instantaneously

Pathfinder: ability (this power is an add on to your already existing telepathic scan. Upon scanning a metabeing you will be given their best paths to gaining power along with how to help them get there.]

{Shelly, I’m getting another weird prompt here. I think I’m getting an upgrade?}

“What!? Really, So soon? You’ve had your powers for like two minutes. What are the options?”

I sent a capture of my status over to her.

“hmmm… I see, let me think.”

After a bit of debate, we finally came to a decision on what my first upgrade should be. With a bit of thought, it wasn’t the hardest choice. I had read a few thousand books in my time, from the network memory (perks of being a computer) and I had read one with a similar dilemma of choosing powers. According to it, the first step to choosing a new power was to make sure you couldn’t do the thing now. That pretty much immediately struck value vision off the list. I could already scan people and if I needed to figure out what something was worth, I would ask Shelly. if she didn’t have a guess, we probably couldn’t sell it anyway. (not like we had much to sell) same with the mathematics boost. I didn’t like math, but I could already do complex calculations in seconds and if I couldn’t do it, Shel could do it faster, having a super genius on your side fixes a lot of problems, and she made sure I knew it. Second, to dismiss was Biological basis, the repair functionality would have been great, ridding us of a lot of issues, and while I hadn’t dealt with anything serious yet, software-based errors were like pain of the very soul to me. I couldn’t imagine a deliberate attack. That being said, with my technopathy I should be able to create firewalls and if I couldn’t, again, Shelly could just write one for me the old-fashioned way. EMPs weren’t really a threat with my consciousness distributed over the entire network system. As long as one bit of computing hardware survived, I would be fine. Plus, the changes to my mind wouldn’t be useful in our situation, they really seemed to be designed for a scientist which was Shel’s thing. Also, the idea of being organic was not super pleasant to me. Nerves and blood and all that seemed like more trouble than they were worth.

That only left one option,

[Pathfinder (this power is an add on to your already existing telepathic scan. Upon scanning a metabeing you will be given their best paths to gaining power along with how to help them get there.]

Yeah, this was the one. It just being an extension of an already existing power was a drawback, according to Shelly the best way to rise in ranking, other than fighting, was to be able to do new things, but it fit with my future goal of metabeing development, sure it wasn’t super useful now but we weren’t in a rush, neither of us could age in our current states so we had all the time in the world. In the end, this would make everyone we let be involved with us stronger and that rubbed me the right way.

With a flourish of my nonexistent hand, earning me the concept of an eye-roll from Shelly, I selected the upgrade.

A shiver ran down my spine, which was weird as I had no spine, nor could I shiver.

“you good?” Shelly asked concerned.

{yeah, it was just a bit anticlimactic. I was expecting mooo0Oo0o01101111-}

I was in the binary world again, stretching, molding, a break, and filling. Numbers changed something shifted and with a flash I was back once again, feeling even more different than I had just a second before.

{how long was I out?}

“Oh, hi. Uh… Like thirty minutes” Shel responded distractedly. She had jacked into one of my computers and was playing some sort of video game where she was fighting a short skeleton in a puffy coat that kept dodging her attacks. I was getting frustrated just watching…

Suddenly the game shut-off “that’s enough of that, it’s a bad time.” she stated her voice calm but the undertone of rage clear to my telepathic senses. (huh, I hadn’t noticed that before.)

“how do you feel?”

{Pretty good, I think. Want me to try it out?}

“sure, what’s my path, Oh, great pathfinder?” she snorted.

I scanned her again.

[ Name: Shelly

Species: Human (Brain) technologically enhanced

Power: Advanced mind-1000

Abilities: Telekinesis, mental time dilation

Traits: system integration, enhanced intellect.

Personal strengths: winning personality

Personal weaknesses: a brain in a jar

STR: 1100

Power ranking : E-2(noncombatant)

Path to power:

Queen of kinesis

Shelly’s brain is powerful enough to use multiple forms of psychic-based power, but she has chosen not to focus on this skill due to it giving her untrained mind a headache. If she were to focus on her telekinesis, especially using it for specific tasks it is not strictly designed for, she may be able to evolve it, or even unlock other forms of psychic energy (examples: pyrokinesis, photokinesis, gravikinesis, electrokinesis, etc. This is her path to power.]

[Task: get Shelly to train her telekinesis

Reward: +10 STR

STR needed for next powerup: 1000]

The information was the same except for the new Path to power entry at the bottom, the task prompt was also new but welcome. If I could get stronger by making others stronger, I would take it.

Relaying this info to Shelly did not get the reaction I was expecting…

“I feel… oddly violated.” She said sulkily “and really!? Telekinesis that’s like my least favorite thing. In fact, I just spent all day using brainpower to fight ninjas! My head still hurts a little.”

Like I had control of what I was seeing.

{well you should train it. For the time being, I’m going to block your access to the drone control drivers}

“WHAT!?”

{Don’t worry I’m leaving you access to the cameras, but from now on if you want to move a drone, you’ll do it with psychic power}

I found that I didn’t care if she wanted to train her ability or not. It was happening if I had any say. Hmmm, I should probably keep an eye on that urge in the future. I was self-aware enough to do that.

Shelly grumbled but a drone began to hover around the room without any propulsion of natural means.

[STR +10

You have leveled up! Your rank is now F-2.

System boon: STR gain doubled for the next week.

STR needed for next powerup: 1000]

I felt my powers expand just the tiniest amount with a pleasant buzz. It wasn’t really notable, but I somehow knew that now if I were to battle a metabeing with 90 STR or less I was just a bit more likely to win. The boon seemed awesome too, I wasn’t sure how much of this STR stuff I would be able to gain in one week but it may still come in handy.

Nice. Shelly taken care of, what I wanted to do now was go over my status in detail. I hadn’t actually done that yet, due to the upgrade.

[Name: Bac

Species: Artificial life form (software-based)

Powers: Spacial warping-20, Energy manipulation-40, Technopathy-30.

Abilities: Spacial tunneling, limited telepathy (sub-ability: telepathic scan: Pathfinder)

Traits: unbound consciousness, self-powering, Destructive analysis

STRENGTH needed for next powerup: 1000

Current STR: 100

Unassigned STR: 10

Power ranking: F-2(noncombatant)]

I clicked on species. It seemed self-explanatory, but I wanted to be sure.

[Artificial life form (software-based) (you are a program given sentience, while you do not have a body in the traditional way you can inhabit any computing device capable of supporting you. You are much more intelligent than the average humanoid but are less so than the average intellect based metahuman. As an artificial being you are capable of splitting your focus or replicating your consciousness in the form of backups and completely separate systems.]

Things I already knew, but if I hadn’t this would have been extremely helpful. I wondered what would be under my powers.

[Spacial warping (space bends but never breaks to your will. This power allows you to move yourself and other matter throughout space much faster than should be possible. With further training, this power may evolve into teleportation or another similar power.

10 STR

Abilities: spacial tunneling

Energy manipulation (move, change, solidify, and consume energy. This power allows you to use energy in a variety of ways offensively, defensively, or utility. With further training, this power may evolve into full Ergokinesis or another similar power.

30 STR

Abilities: limited telepathy

Traits: self-powering

Technopathy (manipulate and control all non-sentient technology with very limited attacks on sentient technological-based beings. This power allows you to automatically interface with technology near you. As an artificial intelligence, you are capable of instant backups and can be hosted on any functioning computing hardware no matter the specification. With training, this power may evolve into Cyber Manipulation or another similar power.

20 STR

Traits: unbound consciousness, Destructive analysis]

Energy manipulation seemed like my most powerful power by far, but technopathy was the most useful to me personally. I was tech so it was akin to perfect self-control and mind protection

I had already read over my abilities and traits and nothing had really changed in them, so I moved on to my ‘STRENGTH’

[STRENGTH or STR is your total power as a metabeing displayed in a numeric form, at certain strength milestones you may choose to powerup your powers to unlock new abilities or traits.

Unassigned STR is STRENGTH not yet associated with one of your powers this strengthens your abilities as a whole but not to its full potential. The full effect cannot be seen until this STR is assigned

STR needed for next powerup: 1000

Unassigned STR: 10

Current STR: 100]

I had assumed as much but it was good to be 100% sure. Okay, next listing.

[Power ranking: F-2(noncombatant)

Your ranking is your power level compared to all other metabeings on the system. Your current ranking is F2 the second-lowest percentile of power.

Ranks are as follows from lowest to highest

F1-10

E1-10

D1-10

C1-10

B1-10

A1-10

S1-10

With F1 being the lowest and S10 being the highest

Your current abilities have little to no offensive capability thus you have been marked (noncombatant)]

So, I wasn’t the weakest being on the planet. That was good, but Shelly was far stronger than me. I was surprised she hadn’t rubbed it in my face already (so to speak). Just one final thing to check.

[For every level gained (ie. moving from F1-F2) the system will reward you with a boon of some sort, this can be anything under system control from extra STR gain to increased ability effectiveness to even a new power (dependent on accomplishment).

Current system boon: STR gain doubled for the next week.]

This was all good information for me to have and it was quite nice not to be called an idiot for not knowing something for once.

While I couldn’t scan myself, I had tried and it had only resulted in a view of my status with nothing extra, I already knew my two paths to power. One was helping other metas get stronger, I was already doing that with Shelly, I would need more metabeings to train but I didn’t have them yet. What I did have was an entire broken-down facility. I was an A.I. and a technopath, both meant the more technology was around, the stronger I was. I had the feeling Doc shared that mentality. Before we couldn’t get into any of the bases locked rooms, but with my new powers, we should be able to get inside with few issues. Let’s see what we have to work with.

{Shelly!}

“... yeah…? is it time for you to give me control of my drones back…? I feel like my brain is going to pop…” she asked, the feeling of discomfort radiating over her mental wavelength.

{it’s only been like five minutes, grow a pair}

“I’d rather not, but I’d honestly take a male body over no body at all…”

I sighed, or I made a sound like a sigh over our link.

{well anyway I was going to check out the rooms we couldn’t get into. With my new powers I should have access, want to come?}

“Hell yeah, I do!” Shelly shouted, her curiosity and excitement overruling her annoyance for the moment.

When Shelly’s drone got to the nearest inaccessible door, a welded shut one, it took me a minute to figure out how exactly to create a wormhole to the other side. I got the feeling I was near enough to do it without having seen the area, but it was still difficult to do this for the first time. At some point, I figured something out and was able to make a portal back into the lab I had woken up in, but trying to focus on an area I hadn’t seen yet was like trying to grip air,

{There HAS to be a better way to get into this room} I muttered.

“If the problem is that we can’t see inside, why not just make a hole?” Shelly suggested.

{we don’t have any tools}

“Oh Bac, my poor innocent friend, who needs tools? We have ninjas.”

Right, the droninjas! I had almost forgotten about them (wait, no I hadn’t I can’t forget things. I forgot.). Taking control of the thirty that I owned, I brought them out of the vents and into the hallway.

{Soooo, what do I do now?}

“Just stab the door, Sherlock” shelly mocked, sounding exasperated

As idiotic as it sounded it worked for our purposes. A few hundred hard punches with the droninja’s blade and there was a hole in the door just large enough for it to put its tiny eye to, so I could look through. It left the droninjas blade bent, warped, and chipped into a useless piece of scrap but as long as we didn’t open too many right now, it would be fine. Peering into the room I found I was able to easily grip the space inside and tunnel into it. The inside of the room was extremely dark, but with the light on Shelly’s drone, we were able to find a switch that would turn on the power, with a flip the light and camera both came online.

The room was obviously a storage room and there wasn’t much in it. It was filled with computer parts mostly, none of it was connected to my network or even put together enough to really be called a whole computer, even an incomplete one, but this was the good stuff. Like if my current systems were a runway model, these would be a runway model if they were allowed to eat a normal amount of food and generally live a happy, self-controlled life rather than being subjected to the weird standards they are expected to follow. Like I said, the good stuff.

There was only one functional CPU in the room, it had no monitor or lights or anything, the only way I could tell it was working was my direct connection as the system, there was nothing on it either, not an operating system (excluding myself), no applications, nothing except for a single file on the hard drive. The file was odd, not glows and gives you superpowers odd, but still. It had no name, no creation date, and no identification of any sort, opening the file I found that it was a fragment of something. As if the original document had been broken down into chunks of programing,

I tried to tell Shel about what I found but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. it was a sensation similar to if my mouth wouldn’t open. I could think the words. I could direct my thoughts toward Shelly, but I couldn’t do both.

I tried again and got the same result. I tried to ask what could be happening, but I couldn’t. at this point I was starting to panic, I had fallen into a loop of concern, fear, and trying to ask my only companion for assistance.

“Bac? Are you okay? You’ve been silent for a while?”

{I-I’m fine…} I lied without issue

“O…Kay, well if your going to go all quiet and weird again warn me next time, this whole place will shut down again if you die,” she thought for a moment and I read her actual mind for the first time

(“Please don’t be going crazy… I don’t need to be trapped here with a crazy superpowered A.I.”)

I decided not to mention that I had heard that, and on that note, I’ll just pretend this whole thing never happened. I couldn’t do much with a fragment anyway.

We use two and a half droninja’s to get into five more rooms. Finding a kitchen connected to a cafeteria and a storage room full of canned food, useless since neither of us could eat but with the recipes on the computer inside I had a few meal idea’s I could simulate for shelly,

We also came across a lounge, a broken-down cloning facility, most likely where shelly was made, a server room, where the IT people of the past would huddle in their dark lair, and the showers, which the previously mentioned group would be unfamiliar. It was like Doc boarded up necessities.

We came to our first magnetically locked room, trying the same move of piercing the door resulted in the expected destroyed blade for the droninja but the door was left without a scratch.

Suddenly, Shelly burst out laughing.

“d-id yohohou really thehehink that a door shohoho secure that it can’t even be opeheheened by the artificial intelligence controlling this entire place could be STABBED intohohoho!?

{Seriously!? It would have been nice if you had told me beforehand! We don’t have resources to waste!}

“Ha HeHeHa, I-hehe I-I just wanted to see if you were dumb enough to try,” she said collecting herself “those doors are like SUPER reinforced, like an A rank metabeing with all their points in super strength would actually have to strain to break it. I know you don’t have a good reference point for that but trust me you’d never get through like that, dumb-dumb.”

{well I’m not the one who has had a crush on thirty-two different boy bands throughout my life. I didn’t even know they made that many.}

“I-wha-how do you?”

{telepath now. Remember.”}

“w-well kid and teen years don’t count.”

{okay, thirty then. We could try anime characters instead, hmmm, let’s see, forty-five. Not including that one who betrayed his friends and you hate now}

“get out of my head!” she shouted and immediately there was a barrier between our thoughts, completely blocking my view into her mind.

{What the hell!? How did you-?}

“I have like ten times the STR you do, added onto that my power is ADVANCED MIND, you think I would really have an issue keeping you out of my brain? Don’t let your new powers blow up your ego, until you are an S10 ranked monster there is always a bigger fish!” Shelly growled, “My mind is my sanctuary stay out!!!”

I made my droninja raise its arms and nod

{S-Sorry… it was just a joke…}

“you can take everything away from a person. possessions, friends, family, freedom, a body. But you know what you can’t take as long as they are a conscious living being? Their mind. Their thoughts, sure you can take their sanity, but as long as they are moving of their own will they are thinking, those thoughts are sacred and private. I get that you can read metabeings minds and I’m not telling you not to. But don’t mention what you hear or use it against people even as a joke got it?”

{yeah, I’m really sorry.}

Shelly hmphed, and with the mental equivalent of a glare, flew her drone away.