I would love to tell you that overcoming my phobia was a breeze. I could of course, but I would be lying.

In reality, it took all my willpower not to bolt before Mark even entered the room. I knew it was necessary. I knew it would help me. And I still was only prevented from running by Ben holding me in his arms.

And when Mark in his combat body stomped in, having to crouch a bit to fit through the door, I almost jumped up again.

This time, Ben held me a bit stronger, instead of just providing moral support, and I felt myself shivering.

The panic… let’s just say I wanted to roll myself up on the ground again. Or run as fast and as far as I could.

Fortunately, that lessened somewhat when Mark spoke. The familiar voice, coming from the familiar face, helped me to calm down a bit.

Still, I kept shivering and tried to cower behind Ben, who softly but determinedly kept me from it.

Instead, he softly spoke into my ear, calming me down. I honestly don’t remember what he said.

Finally, after an unknown amount of time, I relaxed enough that Ben did no longer have to hold me there, and we began a conversation.

Well, not true. Ben and Mark began a conversation. I was way too busy trying not to whimper.

They were mostly talking about trivial stuff. The weather, for example, it was cold and wet, or their favorite food, or the situation in general.

For some of the time, Mark was gushing about how hyper-rad his cyberware was, and what he now could do.

And sure, he was right, even if I have to brag, his cyberware was a technological marvel. He told me how, for the first time since he knew her, somebody beat Kate at arm wrestling. And how much faster and dexterous he was.

All in all, he was faster, stronger, and more accurate than any other living person. Probably even any other person who ever lived. And to top it all, he was as armored as a full power armor.

Sure, the helmet was opened and retracted at the moment, but even his skull was nearly impossible to damage by anything smaller than a crew-served weapon.

From the specs Jessi had given me, they had essentially taken the standard Einherjar and scaled it up a bit.

Sure, Mark was only about 30% bigger than the combat bots, but… that resulted in more than twice the volume.

More power cells, bigger, stronger muscles, thicker armor… all that above and beyond the Einherjar.

The nice thing about thinking about the specs was that it distracted me from there being a behemoth of a man sitting not two meters away from me.

Somewhat.

Several times during the first half hour, I forced myself to relax my muscles, only for them to tense up again when my concentration waned.

I got a sudden reprieve when Kate came into the room, carrying Nibbles. It seemed as if my cat was not at all happy about being carried around by her right now, though I knew that Nibbles loved playing with the Mutant, but she quickly calmed down as soon as Kate pushed her into my lap, giving me one of her favorite toys.

I don’t understand how Kate does those things, but yes, Nibbles being here, and playing with her helped tremendously.

Though she was almost as wary of Mark as I was. Come on, he looked completely different, except for his face, and he smelled like a robot. But his voice won her over again, and after some time, she carefully sniffed at him, mewed a few times in confusion, and then rubbed herself on his legs.

It seemed as if I was the only one still cowering and shivering in fear for Mark.

It took several hours, At one point, Cartwright and Sullivan, clad in French maid uniforms, probably as a form of humiliation punishment, carted in some food.

They did, indeed, serve the whole time as wait staff, bringing coffee, juice, sodas, or whatever other drink one of us wanted to drink.

Ben surprised us all when he asked for some iced chai latte, with whipped cream. His smirk over the… consternation of those two troopers was glaringly obvious, and it was clear that he just selected something relatively exotic just to add to their punishment.

When our two ‘maids’ left for the kitchen, Mark, softly chuckling, asked Ben:

“Do you even like this iced chai latte?”

Ben snorted and shrugged.

“No idea. I’ve never even had a normal chai. But right now, we don’t have the easy concentrate in the house.

Yes, we have the basic ingredients, such as the black tea, the spices, and the milk. But they have to mix the spices correctly, and then prepare the tea exactly right.

And Warden already has declared that she will ‘supervise’ them so that they don’t send out an ‘inferior’ product.”

“So… you did that just to punish them some more? Why are you singling out those two?”

Ben sighed:

“You are not responsible for keeping Kitten safe. Yes, it would have been nice of you to call me, but let’s be honest, you are something of a scatterbrain. I know that, and actually have planned accordingly.

If you had called, fine, makes everything else easier. But I just did not count on it. Justin and Ryan did call me as soon as they learned that you’ve entered the fortress, and they also informed Warden. Yeah, they should have informed Svenja, but… in all honesty, informing Warden should have been enough.

Thomson, Reynolds, and Svenja were not informed, so they were as surprised as Vivian was.

You can’t hold any of them responsible for Warden sabotaging our efforts.

Hell, as much as I want to, I can’t even deny Warden’s logic. She is right. I hate it, but she is right.”

He took a deep breath.

“But Cartwright and Sullivan? Those two assholes fucked up. I know for sure that every single person in the platoon was informed that they needed to call Thomson, Reynolds, and Svenja immediately when you showed up. I was there when they were briefed.”

I closed his eyes and slowly shook his head.

“No, those two can be happy that they are still part of the platoon, and not already on a grav ship back to Seattle.

They are the only ones who actually have the responsibility of their part of the fuck up. In consequence, Thomson and I decided to punish them in this way.

Reynolds actually proposed it. For the next month, those two will get every shit detail that Reynolds can find, or invent.

I have already given orders to Justin and Ryan to add to the petty demands. It is a humiliating punishment but causes no real damage.

Hopefully, it is enough to scare them straight. Otherwise, Thomson has to have them replaced.”

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Mark shrugged, and the movement made me twitch again. Though it was reassuring that it by then needed that to nearly have me try to bolt again, instead of his mere presence.

“Seriously, if they are that unreliable, why doesn’t Thomson boot them out directly? If they are a weakness in the protection?”

Svenja, who all this time sat at the side, answered him:

“Regardless of how we handle it, there will be a weakness. Either we keep them, and hopefully can get them to pull their weight, or we need to integrate their replacements into our teams.

Right now, we are trying the way that maybe lets them save their jobs. We gave them the choice though. Go back to Seattle, and still have something resembling a career, or try this last attempt at getting it right.

But if they fuck up again, they scuttled their career.”

“But… they know me. They know that I am no threat to Red. Why is what they did fucking up?”

Ben sighed.

“Mark, you are, and please don’t take that as an insult, a blunt object. You are the type that goes into the thick of the combat and teaches your opponents a whole new meaning of pain.

But you are… woefully unsuited for personal protection. It is a completely different mindset. In your world, just knowing you, and knowing that you are no danger, is enough.

But for bodyguards, it is not that easy. First, remember, you look nothing like you looked before. And even the few things that do, your face and your head, are entirely synthetic. The only thing preventing some other corporation from scooping out your brain and putting in one of their agents is that only Enki has the tech.”

I could that not quite stand this way, and piped up:

“That is not quite ri… eep!”

Then Mark's look focused on me, and I stopped speaking, making myself as small as I could. Interestingly prompting a questioning mew from Nibbles, who jumped onto my lap again and sniffed my face.

Ben smiled softly and asked:

“You were saying?”

“The… the cyberware… it… it is locked to his neural signature. It would take a quantum computer and a few weeks, or the master code that Enki has, to… to unlock the bodies. The head is as far… as far as I know im.. impossible to unlock. If Mark dies, it either will be buried with him or will need to be recycled.”

I stammered that out with an uncomfortably tiny voice, barely being able to make myself speak.

Both of them looked at me for a moment, before Ben continued his explanation:

“Well, apparently it is not that easy to replace you in your own cyber body. But the point still stands. Yes, your face is a copy of your old, biological one, but there is nothing stopping anybody from making another copy of it.”

When Mark began to protest, Ben raised his hand:

“Yes, right now, it is virtually impossible. What you have is literally the only body of this type in existence. That will change in a few weeks, though I doubt it will fall into the hands of our enemies anytime soon.

But those two nonetheless were lax and dismissive in their duties. It was harmless, this time, but they can’t be sure, and this behavior is a clear sign of them not taking their duties seriously.

They are essentially gambling with Vivian’s life. We can not allow that. Fuck, it will be hard enough to stop well-prepared infiltrators anyway. This cyborg body of yours, both of them really, can not be identified by biometry.

Anybody could build a copy of it and simply walk into any secured place you have access to.”

That… made me think. I mean, sure, Ben was absolutely right. And it was a weakness that… we had to do something against.

My thoughts wandered to the neural signature that locked the cyberware, but I dismissed that idea quickly again. It would only work if we could trust the whole chain between the brain and the scanner.

In our own cyberware, no problem. But it would be possible to fake the signature. So no joy here.

But on the other side… there was that project I had running about the technological mindreader. It was still slow going. I had some breakthroughs, but nothing ‘mindblowing’, pun intended.

But one thing I had learned early on in the project, heck, even before I made the mind blockers, was a way to identify the… specific resonance of a certain brain. I had not believed that to be important, but right at that moment, I realized I was wrong.

I… we, would have to put in quite some research time finding out how this resonance changed over time, but I had gathered some data for the last year or so already, just as a byproduct of having this project simmer on low priority.

Ben rubbed his chin, musing loudly:

“That is a problem. We have to find something to positively identify people, even if they are full-body cyborgs. Maybe this neural signature can help?”

I shook my head. In retrospect, it was clear that with some problem put before me, I completely forgot my fear of Mark in his combat body, but right then, I did not even realize it.

“That won’t work. Not reliably at least. The cybernetic head can read the signature directly from the brain. That is why it can’t be faked here. But everything else needs to get it from the head. It is hard to put enough computing power into the head to fake it and still have some resemblance of a functional mind, but there is enough room even in the everyday body to get it done.

Not easy, but possible.”

Ben pulled me in a side hug and commented:

“That is not like you, to just declare something won’t work. I am sure you could figure something out to make it work.”

I shrugged.

“It is a matter of space. The only way to make it secure is a complicated algorithm to encode the signature which makes it hard to falsify. That takes computing power. And we can never be sure that nobody will ever figure out a way around it.”

I took a deep breath.

“No, I think the neural signature is at best a red herring. But I think I have something better. An offshoot of the mind blocker. Every active brain emits a specific quantum field resonating in a quite complicated pattern. As far as I can tell, this field is absolutely unique. And it comes directly from the brain.

We should be able to create a device that maps this field and positively identifies the brain in question.”

Of course, it was right then that Mark had to enter the conversation again:

“Wait, will that work through the mind blocker or will the blocker blind this thing?”

I turned my attention to him, and I was already answering before I realized who was asking this question:

“No, the mind blocker stops secondar… urgh!”

As soon as I focused on him, his oversized body came back into the foreground of my thoughts, and I burrowed myself into Ben’s side, trying to hide myself.

Mark just looked confused, while Ben chuckled softly.

“You did so well, Kitten. I think that is the way to get it done. Put a puzzle in front of you so that you forget that Mark is even there. Now… how about you answer Mark’s question?”

It took me a few moments, while I swallowed hard, trying to gather the courage to speak. Finally, I squeaked out:

“The mind blocker blocks a secondary resonance induced by the active thoughts. This reads the baseline of the mind.”

Ben nodded but rubbed his chin again.

“So, this quantum signature is on another level and can’t be blocked?”

“It… can be blocked, but that can’t be hidden. It’s like hiding a candle flame by putting it in a bonfire. Sure, you won’t see the candle, but the very fact that there is a bonfire will be hard to miss.”

“But will it be precise enough to identify people?”

I sighed.

“Keep in mind I have an extremely limited sample size. A bit over 40. However, the individual quantum fields are incredibly intricate. At this moment I can only guess, but with the tech I already have I would be seriously surprised if two beings were showing the same readings.

I have to do the math for it though.”

It was clear that Ben was not fully satisfied yet.

“Does this… signature change over time?”

I shrugged.

“Again, limited sample size, but so far in the people I have observed it hasn’t. At least not measurably. We will have to look into it for the next few years to make a definite statement.”

To my confusion, Ben chuckled softly as an answer. When I looked at him quizzically, he chuckled again.

“You know, it is really cute how you get so confident when you think about things like this security system, and the moment you realize that you are in the presence of Mark, you try to crawl into a hole.”

I frowned.

“What are you… eeep!” You guessed it, it was at this moment that I noticed Mark again.

Ben, the jerk just laughed out loud, before he kissed me on my nose.

“Don’t change Kitten, you are just perfect as you are.”

Mark began fidgeting but mostly remained sitting still, going back to chatting with Ben.

Meanwhile, I started to put together the design specifications of the brain quantum field security device.

I was patently aware that virtually every biometric scanner on the market was vulnerable to direct manipulation. If somebody splices into the connection between the sensor and the rest of the security system, manually sending the all-clear signal, the whole setup would be circumvented.

The same if somebody broke into the scanner itself and manipulated the electronics to send the signal.

I decided to manufacture the whole sensor in a NADA as a sealed black box. Impossible to open without destroying the tech.

To that extent, I would place part of the electronics distributed inside the magnesium case. The case itself would contain a pocket of oxygen, and a pocket of white phosphorus, as well as a generous piece of thermite, with a Q-link buried inside it.

That would make the splicing into the connection, as well as the direct manipulation of the electronics impossible.

Irrelevant of where the module was installed, breaching the oxygen pocket would ignite the phosphorus, which in turn would ignite at least the thermite, and in a breathable atmosphere also the magnesium.

Even in a hard vacuum, it would burn the Q-link, and most of the electronics to slag. Under water, it would probably only destroy the Q-link completely, but from a security point of view, that was enough. Without the Q-link, there would be no signal sent to the security system.

Yes, an assailant would have made the lock partially inoperable, but that could be repaired.

There should be active protection at any place requiring such a device anyway.

I should note that I did not go into cyberspace to actually create the device. That would have defeated the task of getting used to big men. I just thought about how I would design it and make it secure while remaining in the real world.

Thus I was exposed to Mark the whole time. Interestingly, thinking about that helped quite a bit, and I followed the idea further and kept my mind busy, while Mark and Ben chatted way into the afternoon, while being served by Cartwright and Sullivan in their ludicrous getup.

And just like that, my phobia magically vanished.

…

…

Yeah, sure! After several hours of being exposed to Mark, who I had gotten to know as a relatively nice guy, even if he was a horndog, and who I considered a friend, I was at a point where I was no longer a quivering wreck rolled up in a corner catatonic in my panic.

Don’t get me wrong, that was incredible progress, but at that point, it only meant that I could be around Mark in his combat body without trying to run away.