Ateia lay on the bed of the room. She groaned and clutched her head. Pain shot through her mind once again…along with dreams. One moment she was a young boy getting beaten by a group of children. The next she was a sickly girl, with strange tubes stabbed into her body and beeping noises from her side. Then she was a knight, cutting through a room full of people. Later she was an attendant, being screamed at by a teenage girl.

There were even times when she became a monster.

“Miss? I brought you some tea, may I come in?”

Ateia didn’t respond, and eventually the door opened up. The woman who had shown her this room stepped inside, carrying a warm mug. She frowned as she looked over Ateia. She opened her mouth, speaking in a light whisper.

“If I may make a suggestion…you appear to be suffering from sensory overload? It may help if you focus on something.”

She held out the mug. Ateia peeked her eyes open, wincing at the bright lights all around her. She shut them again, and reached her hand out. The woman placed the cup into her hand. Ateia slowly took a sip. She winced as the heat and taste of the drink spread through her, but tried to focus on it. As the sensations coursed through her, the dreams and the pain in her head began to fade. The woman nodded.

“It’s a common symptom in individuals who dump their boons into powerful senses all at once. When you can suddenly take in much more information than previously, your mind will struggle to sift through it all. Focusing your whole attention on one thing at a time will help you adjust, until you can filter out the excess.”

Ateia nodded and sipped the drink again. Her mind started to clear…and so she started to think once more.

She remembered…

She groaned as pain stabbed through her head once more, and her mind filled with more images. The woman stepped forward and gently pushed the cup up to her lips. Ateia took another sip and focused on the drink once more. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Why is this happening? I don’t even understand what’s going on.”

The woman gently placed her hand on Ateia’s shoulder. Ateia winced in anticipation of another wave of sensations…but it didn’t come. The woman’s touch felt normal.

“You will. Just take it one sip at a time.”

NSLICE-00P noticed someone interacting with Ateia. The woman appeared to be helping Ateia, stating she was experiencing sensory overload, and took measures that appeared to abate some of Ateia’s symptoms. As such, NSLICE-00P decided not to intervene, but kept a close eye on the situation. She was prepared to immediately Transfer Ateia back to the Monster Hangar if the woman showed any sign of hostile intent.

And so she devoted the rest of resources to her investigations, analyzing any relevant data to Ateia’s situation.

At this point, she had mostly ruled out a fundamental incompatibility between mana and the foreign system on the one hand and the techno-organic interface on the other. None of the other NSLICE units in her current network were experiencing any issues with their own techno-organic interfaces. The network included a mammalian sapient in Uscfrea, as well as a wide variant of other species. While issues had arisen in Lilussees’s case, these were due to a software oversight not accounting for arachnid physiology, and Lilussees’s unfamiliarity with the NSLICE UI at the time. Such issues should not be relevant to Ateia’s case.

So the possibility of a physical incompatibility still existed, but the probability was so low that NSLICE-00P decided to investigate other potential causes first.

Next was the possibility of a faulty installation of cybernetic components. But…this too was predicted as unlikely. All diagnostics indicated that Ateia’s systems were fully functional. And…while the physical installation of the cybernetic components had been haphazard, the foreign system and the mana from NSLICE-00P’s core had taken over and completed the process. NSLICE-00P compared this process to when she had upgraded her other subordinates, while the readings were unique for each individual case, they all resembled one another to a certain degree. This went for Ateia as well, once the large quantity of external mana was taken into account. As far as NSLICE-00P could tell, the same process that upgraded her other monsters had upgraded Ateia, and none of them had displayed any issues to this degree. Again, Lilussees's case had been a programming and sensor oversight, rather than a fundamental incompatibility, and had been resolved with ease.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

So while she couldn’t conclusively rule out the possibility, all data, records, analysis, and diagnostics she currently had available indicated that scenario was unlikely.

She refocused on the other possibilities, ones based on causes that would not apply to her other units. There were two of note: Ateia’s organic components, and the interaction between her organic memory and the emotional controls.

Ateia’s organic components were giving off non-standard readings, some of which included Holy Mana, and some of which were similar to the readings given off by the Divination spell. The woman currently with Ateia had speculated the girl was suffering from sensory overload. All this could imply that Ateia’s organic components had changed during the upgrade process, and that she was having trouble handling improved sensors. And if Ateia’s organic components had changed, there was no guarantee that the techno-organic interface would remain fully compatible even if it was functional.

As of now, all the diagnostics NSLICE-00P had access to indicated Ateia’s organic components remained similar to a human's, though her mana signature was noticeably higher and Holy-attributed. However…that in itself could be a clue. As NSLICE-00P had previously determined, mana was a fundamental force in this universe, and biology tied into it. Her current organic diagnostic analysis may not fully capture all the relevant factors of the native organics, so combined with the non-standard readings she could not say that Ateia had not changed in a way she could not yet perceive.

The other possibility was that Ateia’s organic memories were clashing with the techno-organic interface, specifically the emotional controls and intelligence leashing measures. This possibility was predicted as likely. All of the NSLICE units in her previous world had had their organic memories reset during the upgrade procedure. All of the NSLICE units she had upgraded in this world did not possess emotional controls or intelligence leashing protocols. Ateia was a unique case in that regard.

So…could those protocols and measures cause damage to an organic with preexisting memories?

NSLICE-00P…wasn’t sure. All the technical data she possessed on NSLICE units and all the protocols from her original organization did not mention this particular case, and gave no consideration to non-permanent damage caused by the implants.

But…there was an observation NSLICE-00P had made that did seem relevant.

Some time after she had been reprogrammed by the Resistance, her previous Commander had brought down the entire NSLICE network, disconnecting NSLICE-00P from it first. So…she lacked data on what had happened next, though she had been able to observe from the outside. At the time, all the other NSLICE units seemed to suffer internal damage and emotional distress that her Commander had ultimately resolved, reactions not dissimilar from Ateia's. After that event, the NSLICE units appeared to recover some deleted organic memories from before their upgrades, if NSLICE-00P was analyzing the contextual clues correctly.

Which implied that the existence of pre-upgrade organic memories could, in fact, cause a damaging incompatibility with NSLICE components. Though…in that case, the issue had apparently been resolved.

The problem was that NSLICE-00P had no data on how exactly her previous Commander had resolved the issue. Not only was she disconnected from the NSLICE network at the time, but that situation had also involved non-standard means and proprietary technology that NSLICE-00P did not have access to.

Actually, there had also been mana and a magic circle involved at one point, which NSLICE-00P had observed. But by contextual clues, NSLICE-00P judged that said magic circle had been used to trigger the incompatibility, rather than resolve it, and she was not certain spells from her prior world could be cast with this world’s mana in the first place, so she predicted it would be risky to attempt it on Ateia. Still, she filed said spell away for future testing.

All in all, that meant NSLICE-00P now needed to determine why preexisting organic memories were incompatible with NSLICE components, and how exactly her previous Commander had solved the issue. Well, one obvious solution would be to simply delete the preexisting organic memories, but she lacked data on how exactly her original organization had achieved that, as well as any required infrastructure, so that solution wasn’t viable. It had also proven a reversible measure in the case of the other NSLICE units, so was not a guaranteed, permanent solution either.

She would have to search for alternative means…

Taog walked aimlessly through the villa. He furrowed his brow, he took a deep breath. He thought upon what the woman had said to him.

A boy who runs and hides and mistakes fear for wisdom, huh?

His heart burned and he held back a growl. What did she know? That old lady was just a human, working in a Consul’s villa of all things! She did not, could not know what it was like to grow up as a half-Wulver in a Turannian village!

“You are a Wulver’s pup, the son of the hunters of the land. You should not whimper and cower like prey.”

He bit back another growl. That was easy for the Dobhar to say! She lived among her own people, and was one of the strongest of their warriors to boot! She didn’t know what it was like to be weak and surrounded by enemies all her life!

Plus, she was kind of a jerk, in Taog’s opinion.

A jerk who had fought to protect him. Who had not given up when faced with her own death.

A memory came unprompted to Taog. A young Ateia stood over him, throwing punches at a larger boy while Taog curled up on the ground.

And then NSLICE-00P came and wiped out a group of bandits who had him dead to rights.

That same NSLICE-00P faced down entire armies and foes over twice her level on her own, and did not falter.

Taog frowned. The flame in his heart died down, and his chest constricted again. He continued walking through the villa…