I don't get along with cops.
Hold on...
Let me put it a different way.
I got my start as a cop killer.
One of my biggest memories is taking out the local sheriff.
Do I remember the town's name? Nope. But I remember the country.
The good ol' US of A.
Here's a history lesson: By the 2200s, the US was on the way out. All that racism and inequality that had been institutionalized from the beginning boiled over into a second civil war in the 2260s. Only uglier.
What was the wedge issue the second time?
States rights.
Hahah, just kidding, it was slavery! Not the old-fashioned chattel stuff, but new-fashioned wage slavery and corporate indenture.
I got born on the side that wanted to preserve the constitution - the 1700s one that allowed all the slavery to happen. Most of the eastern half past the Rockies decided to go for preservation. The Neo Constitutionalist states won, but that was long after I left the country for less-on-fire pastures. Then they immediately tried to annex Canada.
That sheriff I told you about? He was a footman. He buried the nerve-stapled human drones when the local corp in charge of our town got them killed in the factories. Did other things to them too, that I won't say in polite company.
See, the great American employment plan back then was to chip people. Lock off their personality and long-term memory and use their body for however much time corresponded to their debts. Cops enforced it of course, because when you have an organization founded on slave-catching and the well-being of property rights, you find every excuse to go back to your roots.
You go to sleep a dumb twenty-something who took out too much for a car so you could do your job, and you wake up a dumb forty-something with early onset arthritis thanks to your unconscious career in advanced computer chip manufacturing.
Demi lets me remember all my kills. Especially the bad ones. God, I was sloppy when I was fifteen... I'm surprised they didn't catch me over the panicky month that followed.
Guess the corpos figured replacement was more cost-effective than hunting me. Helped that the guy didn't have direct family, so they could ignore his insurance.
As for the cops in front of me...
All of them were programs. Not charming, personality-filled programs like Tia, but literal blank faces with guns in hand. They were attended by a comm drone.
"Don't go any further, Reaper. You are not authorized to be here." The voice coming through the drone said. "As Chief of Security for the Ziggurat, I command you to leave."
"You don't say? But I'm with a librarian. I'm not being repelled by the paywall..."
"You destroyed the walls! And that program is Administrative Property! TIAMaT, return to central processing and resume your work!"
Ah, Administrative Property. The old argument made new. That echo of slavery.
Tia had a personality, which meant she wasn't designed to be property. Just like Demiurge. She was supposed to work independently.
Humans had authority levels that could justify orders, requests, and whatnot... But no one could tell a self-aware program to self-destruct... nor could they supersede the authority level of someone higher up than them.
As was usual when humans built a hierarchy, rank was everything.
"Tia, ignore that order," I said as she shifted a bit. For her, it might have been unconscious, but she knew I outranked the local sheriff.
"What are you doing?" the Chief asked as I slowly reached into my jacket. I holstered the Excisor and produced a more conventional digital gun.
"I think you'll find, Sheriff, that my authority supersedes yours in human affairs... Which includes protecting programs like Tia from abuse."
It was half-bullshit, but I wasn't lying entirely. Everything I did was to protect Demi, not just so I could get my memories back, kill the guy that killed me, and maybe start an actual life.
I also protected Demi so that I, and by extension all that remained of humanity, would have a place to spend my immortal afterlife waiting for an afterdeath. Even if that was in the library having an authoritative dick-measuring contest.
If Demi died, so did humanity. Not just those of us that exist, but also every past human. All the names on the books preserved by the Ziggurat would be no more than spent electron dust.
There was a slightly shrill sound as the comm drone scanned me.
"Level Zero? That's... impossible," the man on the other side said.
"I think you'll find it's certainly quite possible. I'm the right-fucking-hand of Demiurge, and it certainly lets me do this..."
With a flash of my wrist, I overclocked for just a second. Just long enough to put one shot in the head of each of the security drones that had been deployed to interfere with my mission.
They fragmented into nothingness. Their excess code and processing allotment reabsorbed into the Medium.
"Now, show me to the nearest Demi terminal and I'll be out of your hair. I might not even check out a book." I smile. In the face of a greater authority, rare is the human not eager to make said authority someone else's problem.
"I can't," the Chief said. "We destroyed those terminals ages ago."
Stupid is the one who can't.
"Then who's in charge here?" I asked.
"That would be Atticus," he said, "but he's away. Living it up in the Apex while the rest of us-"
"I'm just going to stop you right there, Chief. It sounds like the person I have to pay a visit to now is you. And what a coincidence! You're in charge of security. You've got all the cameras and drones to help me find the corrupted zombie in your midst." I smirked. I love smirking. "So show me to your office, and I won't consider using my authority to delete you." I pulled open my jacket, putting away my digital copy of a Fujin 13 mm and giving the drone a view of the Excisor.
It only took him three seconds to buy the bluff. Pretty smart for a dumb cop.
"Fine! But just... no official records. It'll be hard enough covering for the dragon you destroyed," the Chief complained.
"Wait, what?" Tia asked.
"Hate to break it to you, Chief, but that dragon was done the moment you fed it to a goddamn corrupted. So if you want my cooperation with letting you pin that shit on me, you better do more than not get in my way," I countered.
As the drone abruptly turned and started leading the way, opening a large door in the body of the Ziggurat, I wondered if adding "Dragon Slayer" to my resume would make things more interesting going forward.
I glanced over at Tia as we entered the structure.
After the zombie, restoring her had shot up to my second priority... If only to mess with the library cops.