"The one you're talking about... it couldn't be that guy, could it?"
Geno's memory rolled back. He thought of the man he'd run into right after his consciousness first woke in this world — the Hollow Investigator whose body had been eaten through by Ether Corruption.
The man who'd crossed paths with Silver Squad, and whom Anby had finally sent on his way.
"Ah, right, I remember. I was the one who ran the diagnosis on him."
Twiggy remembered too. Back then her own nerve had failed her, and it was Anby who gave the man a quick end.
"That's the one. Ghost was riding inside a device on his body at the time. Later the device broke, and you threw it away. That's the moment it moved over and latched onto you instead."
Listening to Little Geno's account, Geno remembered. He really had stripped a fair number of things off that man, and among them there had been a broken instrument of some kind, which he'd left on the investigator and buried along with him.
Ghost's whole life had been one long walk across thin ice. It had been sleeping soundly, minding its own business, and then out of nowhere its home was gone. With no electronics anywhere nearby, it had no choice but to burrow into Geno.
"So that's what happened... Then why did I never notice it?"
Geno rubbed his chin. Was he really that slow on the uptake? Ghost had been hiding on him this entire time and he'd never once felt it? To that, Little Geno had an answer.
"Nothing strange about it. First, lurking and infiltration are exactly what it's built for. Second, it dropped into dormancy to keep its power draw down. Even I didn't sense it was there."
It sounded like nonsense. It had happened anyway.
Ghost really was a ghost, clinging to the inside of Geno's body. But Geno was an Ethereal, and an Ethereal body holds no great store of energy. There was simply nothing there to wake it up on.
So Ghost kept itself asleep to burn as little as possible, and worked on repairing itself in the meantime.
Which meant lying low inside Geno, scraping together energy a crumb at a time.
And then came the truly infuriating part. For a person, that is — no, for an AI.
Every single time it managed to save up a little, Geno would land himself in trouble. And rather than go down together with him, Ghost had to spend its hard-won reserves hauling him out of the fire.
In the Dead End Hollow. During the attack on Silver Base. Every time, it was Ghost speaking up to help.
And every time it was over, its reserves were burned down to nothing, and the whole slow climb began again.
As though fate had built one enormous joke and aimed it squarely at Ghost.
It wasn't until a while back, when Geno prepared to bet everything and go all-out against the Sacrifice, that it finally understood the truth: running with Geno was a one-way trip to the grave.
Stay attached to him any longer and Geno would get it killed sooner or later. So it schemed up every method it could to smuggle itself off Geno and into his company's computers — and then never dared pull the trigger, because of Fairy.
What came after hardly needs retelling.
It had barely any energy to begin with, and it was already damaged on top of that. Ghost's consciousness was no match for Little Geno, that newborn calf who solved problems by hitting them until they stopped moving. Beaten dizzy by raw strength, it was forced into the only option left: self-destruct.
"It blew itself up, sure. But I'd already seized control of its system before the blast went off, so nothing was really lost."
Little Geno spread his hands. Ghost's core functions, infiltration and concealment, were still perfectly intact.
He also gave his own belly an absent little pat.
As the Filth, matter of the memory-and-soul variety held enormous appeal for him. Call it a second helping.
Poor Ghost. Even after blowing itself apart, it had left behind a pile of embarrassing history as fertilizer, and Little Geno ate his fill. It really... I'm dying here.
"In short, you can think of Ghost's main system as a body double of mine now. It can travel freely through any piece of electronics."
Geno got it. Little Geno might be talking to them through this phone, but his true self still lived inside Geno's Mind Space.
"So, can you still attach to me the way Ghost did?"
"Are you trying to starve me to death?"
Little Geno rolled his eyes. It would be exactly like Ghost all over again. If he kept running Ghost's system while lodged inside Geno, living off that feeble trickle of bioelectricity, he'd end up no better off than Ghost had.
"I see. Shame. Then we'll have to find another way."
Geno propped his chin and thought it over. His original plan had been simple: if Little Geno could still take up residence in a human or Ethereal body, he'd have Twiggy grow him a clone to wear, and Little Geno would be free to move around as he pleased.
"Looks like that's out for now. Then let's start with a mechanical body."
If the flesh route was closed, take the road of mechanical ascension instead, and forge Little Geno a frame of steel.
Something like Billy's.
As he said it, Geno turned his gaze on Twiggy — and Twiggy, finding both Genos, the big one and the small one, staring straight at her, went briefly blank.
"Why are you looking at me? I can't build that."
She might be a high-IQ, high-skill, high-beauty individual, Twiggy implied, but that didn't mean she'd mastered every technology under the sun.
Besides, mechanical intelligent constructs burned money at a rate that made Ether studies look thrifty.
"Aw, so there are things even Twiggy-emon can't do."
"And what on earth is a Twiggy-emon supposed to be!"
Seeing Geno's face fall, Twiggy hovered somewhere between exasperation and laughter. Then a thread of worry crept in.
Was she spoiling him too much? She solved everything for him, and that was exactly why, at moments like this, the first place he turned was always her.
The thought lasted about half a second inside Twiggy's head.
Because really, if she didn't spoil her own man, who was going to?
Alice?
She was one of the spoiled ones herself. (Somewhere, a little rabbit sneezed.)
And right then, Twiggy thought of someone who could solve the whole problem, and a very good idea bloomed.
"Got it! I know exactly who to ask!"
Twiggy's eyes gleamed, the delight tugging at her lips harder to hold down than the kick of an AK. She had a plan.
Then, while Geno stared at her in total confusion, Twiggy dug her phone out of her pocket and dialed a number he didn't recognize.
"Hey, it's me. Yeah. Yeah. Mm. Good, I'll come by tomorrow."
The call was short, and she was too far away for Geno to make out what she was saying to the other end.
But one look at that radiant, ear-to-ear smile told him she'd sorted it.
"All handled. Tomorrow you're coming with me to pick up the goods."
Geno blinked.
"Go where?"
"Sixth Street!"
____
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