The Legendary Junkmaster

Jason yawned as the sounds of the town of Highrise coming to life first thing in the morning, penetrated his sleepy mind. The first thing he noticed was the distinct lack of the headache that had plagued him. Jason blinked a couple of times as he continued to lay on his bed and stare absentmindedly at a crack in his ceiling.

Yesterday seemed like nothing more than a bad dream. However, as Jason sorted through his memories, he knew that the events had been all too real. 'Blue eyes, huh? I guess I could have got stuck with a worse Cosmetic Mutation. Imagine if it had been something like old lady Gafner's.' Instead of a pair of ears, in their place, she had feet growing out of her head!

Jason chuckled at the thought of her, somewhat lightening his mood over his own mutation. He felt incredibly at ease with himself this morning. Something that he had not thought would be possible if he did not receive a useful ability. 'That's right, Gramps took me to some doctor last night. I wonder what she did to me?'

The thought was brief before it completely slipped out of his mind. His memories were still a tad bit hazy, but that did not matter now. For once, he felt ready to take on the world! 'Ah, right! Gramps will want to head out soon! I better get ready.'

As Jason tried to sit up, a searing pain ran from the base of his neck and up into his skull. "Ah! What the hell!"

His hand shot up to rub the back of his neck, but he felt something that was entirely out of place. 'What the heck is that!'

"That would be me!" A woman's voice huffed into his ear. "Do you mind? I don't like you feeling up my body like that!"

Jason panicked as he dove out of his bed. His eyes scanned the mattress for any sign of the woman who just to spoke to him. 'There's nobody there…'

"Of course not, you idiot! How can I be there when I'm right over here?" The woman sounded extremely pissed off as Jason imagined a slender figure tapping her foot on the floor to illustrate her annoyance.

Jason's head swivelled around to glance at his empty room. 'Am I hallucinating?' He wondered which sounded perfectly reasonable. Especially if the doctor had given him a treatment that would have some side effects.

"Yeah, right! Please! I wish! At least then, I wouldn't be stuck to you!"

A woman's face thrust itself into his face from thin air! Jason leapt backwards in fright, letting out a yelp as he hit his head against the bedpost. The woman stalked across his bedroom and took a seat in front of his desk. She gracefully crossed her long legs as she propped her chin up with her hand as she leaned her elbow on his old desk.

Jason stared at her blankly in disbelief. The woman looked like she was in her mid-twenties, at least. Her long blonde hair reached down to her waist and was poker straight. She fixed her bright blue eyes that complimented her fair skin on him. Slowly she began to rhythmically drum her fingers of her spare hand against his desk.

Jason wanted to cry out for help, but he had no idea how this crazy woman would react! She could literally just appear out of thin air in a much smoother way than Dani could with her Teleportation!

"Take your time, kid. It's not like I'm going anywhere." The woman called over to him as she pursed her lips in annoyance.

"Look, Miss. I don't know why you're here, but we don't have anything worth robbing…" Jason quickly shut his mouth as the woman waved her hand at him to be quiet.

"It's not Miss. My name is Syssie. Do you like it? Took me a while to come up with it. But what do you expect when a gal's made out of subpar parts." Syssie waved her arms around theatrically as if to express her indignation. "Shh! I'm not done yet!"

Jason was getting the distinct impression that this woman who called herself Syssie was something of a motor mouth that liked to use her hands to animate her speech. 'I didn't even say anything yet!'

"You know I heard that, right?" Syssie stared at him with a mocking expression. "For someone that's supposed to be super smart, you're pretty dumb. You know that?"

"What the hell! Can you read minds?" Jason panicked as he tried to cover his head with his arms.

"Yeeeeah, totally... Of course not, you moron! It's only your mind I can read or hear. Actually, I'm not sure what the correct expression of that would be." Syssie stared off into space as if she were contemplating the conundrum she had just given voice to. She quickly snapped back to reality as she set her sights on him again. "So, anyway, are you going to give my body an upgrade or what?"

Jason swallowed a lump of saliva as he stared at the woman he fully believed was a lunatic. He had to exert himself to not think of something rude in case Syssie really could read his mind. That would put him in a very uncomfortable position that was sure to be worse than his current one.

"I'm sorry, but how am I supposed to upgrade your body?" Jason was honestly perplexed. It was not like he was a plastic surgeon or anything!

"Ah! That's right!" Syssie slapped herself on the forehead as if she just remembered something important. "Smart you did say that it would be dumb you when you woke back up! Ok, kid, listen up. What do you know exactly about your mutation?"

Jason stared at her with a frown on his face. 'Is this some kind of trick question? What game is she playing?'

"It's just a simple Cosmetic Mutation. All I got were these blue eyes." Jason replied hesitantly while Syssie nodded along.

"Bzzzt! Wrong answer, kiddo!" Syssie crossed her arms in from of her as she imitated a buzzer sounding. "The answer we were looking for is… Super Intelligence!"

Jason was floored by Syssie's theatrics of impersonating a game show host. Not that he actually knew that. 'Super… Intelligence?'

"Bingo! That's what I just said, isn't it? I'm pretty sure I did." Syssie's scathing voice was full of sarcasm and mockery. "Next question… Can you guess what I am?"

Jason's mind was already reeling from what she had just said, so he could not think straight at all. Syssie seemed to grow tired of waiting as she promptly answered her own question.

"I'm what you would call an Artificial Intelligence. Or A.I. for short, and you, Mr Clever Clogs. Thought in your infinite wisdom last night that it would be a good idea to make me out of just about anything you had on hand! I mean, at least buy a girl dinner first, am I right?"

Jason groaned as he tried to wrap his head around the words that Syssie was throwing at him. 'Artificial Intelligence? What the fuck does that even mean?'

"Well, I'm glad you asked." Syssie smiled wolfishly at him as if she had just proven that she really could read his mind. "So basically, I'm a lot like you. I have my own thoughts, feelings and other junk. There's just one major difference. I wasn't born like you were. I'm not made out of flesh and blood. You programmed me to be like this. Then you stuffed all of that code into that heap of junk implant that just so happens to be my real body. You know, that thing you were touching on the back of your neck?"

Jason's hand quickly shot up to his neck, where he did indeed feel something cold and metallic embedded into his body. Jason promptly withdrew his hand when he noticed Syssie glowering at him. Her earlier words rang in his mind again. 'I definitely shouldn't touch it without her permission.'

"Well, I'm glad to see you understand the ground rules. Don't touch the merchandise if you can't afford it! Just like any other machine." Syssie seemed to get lost in thought for a moment before she continued. "Look, right now, we need each other. Whatever crap you used to put me together won't last very long. We have at least a few months until my power supply runs out for good. If that happens, then you can bet your scrawny ass will be following me into the next life."

"What do you mean by that?" Jason asked with a shaky voice as he mulled over her threat.

"Kid, the human brain isn't meant to hold all of the knowledge that you have right now. Didn't you feel a splitting headache? That was your brain sending you a warning sign." Syssie actually looked somewhat sympathetic as she began to explain his current predicament. "Think of your power as if it were a boxer. It's literally punching the fuck out of your brain right now. It needs time to condition itself into a vessel that can hold your power. That's where I come in."

Jason yelped as green lines spread across his vision. Three boxes appeared down the right side of his eye. The first one at the top had a single word written within it. 'Status…' The green lines snaked across his vision once more as they created an entirely new picture.

On the left side of his vision, there was a silhouette of a human male's body. On the back of its neck, there was a dull grey spot. Several lines of the same colour connected that spot with the silhouette's brain and the area surrounding where the eyeballs should be. Jason could not make sense of what he was looking at, so he shifted his vision to the right side.

[Strength: 0.1]

[Endurance: 0.2]

[Intelligence: 1]

[Agility: 0.1]

[Memory: 1]

[Potential Points (PP): 5]

Jason furrowed his brows as he read through those details. 'Is that supposed to represent me?' No matter how he thought about it, he felt insulted that he had been evaluated at less than a score of one on almost everything!

"Bingo! This is indeed an accurate representation of you. It's not what you think, though, so don't go getting your panties in a twist! The number one represents the upper limit that those you would call a 'normie' could reach based on an average adult. So, right now, your Intelligence and Memory are at the physical limit of what an average normal humans body could handle."

Jason stared at her curiously, "If that's the case and I have Super Intelligence, then isn't one too low of a number?

"Yeah, that's right. You see, my job is to limit your ability so that it doesn't kill you. Right now, I'm diverting all of your knowledge that you suddenly gained into an endless loop that passes through my processors to take the strain off of your brain. Right now, this process dials your Intelligence score down to one from ten. So essentially, once you can control this ability of yours. You'll be ten times smarter than any other human…"