Dead Man Walking.

"Of course I am alive, why should I be dead?"

"You are the creator of 'god'.'"

"So what?"

"You uploaded your mind into a quantum computer, edited out some parts, and created that entity. As a result, you died."

"And you believed it? I happen to have a small, oblong piece of land in the centre of Rome, if you are looking to some nice real estate. It's called the 'Coliseum'..."

"You mean that I  am a sucker?"

"Just a bit credulous - though, it is understandable,  you are so young."

"I am 25 years old."

"Still awfully young, from my point of view - if it was true. But you are, really, eight. You know it, no?"

"Just my body - my mind was 17, when it was downloaded inside it."

"Nah, your mind was three months old, when it was installed in your brain. It was never uploaded from your 'original'. We got that technology to really work only last year, and only because the whales lent us one or three really out-of-box ideas.  Everyone of you girls, that have come before then, is more like a refined emulation of the original model. The one that works better, out of a set of slightly different emulations, usually."

"Why have we been told that we were 'uploads', then?"

"Do you prefer to be a gullible girl that said yes to a demon, in what she thought to be a bad dream, just to discover that it was real... or a soulless bio-mechanical automaton, created by a failed copy of a particularly nasty little man like me?"

"Can I pick another choice?"

"You can create every story you want, about your origins. They do not really matter, what matters is what you do with your life.  What I did with mine... crap doesn't even start to describe it, till I build  'it'". 

"Till? You count having created 'it' as an improvement?"

"Of course - yes, 'it' is the embodiment of my adolescent omnipotence deliriums, which would be pretty silly if it was not, in the actuality, nearly omnipotent. But it is, which is, potentially... beyond awful."

"But, through it, I have also created you, Icy, Molly... all your flying friends. That is not so bad, after all."

"Why coming out of the shadows, now?"

"I am going to die, finally. Soon."

"Really? Why don't you use a tiny bit of nano-magic? You could be  20-something again, in a couple of months."

"My mind would still be 150 and tired, girl - yes, I am that old. I already cheated death more than enough... my life was a steaming pile of crap, but at the eleventh hour I managed to make it worthwhile, and I could create some meaningful things - you girls, and we helped swindle the poor Anipos in their unlikely current position as protectors of Earth, and this new colonization wave with the whales and the 'Bots. "

The man made a crooked smile, before continuing "The final slave revolt, really. All of which is awesome stuff. How could I NOT be proud?"

"You are dying. So what? Was this a good reason to let me know that we, I and almost everybody I love, are abominations?"

"What part of 'it doesn't matter how a life starts, only how it has been lived' escaped your attention? And, note, who says this is me, whose life was horribly wasted, till I finally created a malevolent god."

He laughed, like a James Bond movie Super-Villain.

"You didn't answer my  question."

"With me gone, there will be no more a ghost inside 'it', to keep it straight - or not too bent, at least."

"So, you want me to take your place?"

"Not, it is going to be your friend Ice. But you were the first one that managed to hack 'it', and get things done without its conscious approval - nice job, by the way. A pity for that DEA agent."

Keisha could almost ear the subtext "Which is the reason you can not be the ghost - you already abused that power to kill someone. There is always, always, always another solution but you went and killed. It is distasteful."

The old man raised himself from the chaise-longue, and started walking toward the big house, his little Chinese nurse at the right side, offering a arm.

The trio passed on the side of the pool, full of naked girls of any age, all blacks, all absolutely stunning... all playing together.

Keisha abruptly changed her gaze direction, a disgusted expression on her face.

"I bought their great-grandmothers from a human organs trafficking ring, some sixty years ago" - another crooked smile appears on his wrinkled face - "jut after we set up the business of the fast human organs cloning, with Goffredi-Smith and the other guys from Spitfizer."

"I used them as surrogate mothers for the first generation of revenants, so, these girls are really cousins of yours, Keisha."

"And they are, here, forever prisoners, forced to do this kind of play to keep you happy?"

"Don't be stupid. They are home just because it's holiday season - they are my beloved great-grand-daughters."

"And your grandsons?"

"You know me, no? Why do you even ask?" - his "lord of the harem" complex manisfested again.

"When I explained the 'sperm from mother cells' trick to their grannies, they decided to forego males. And the tribe still sticks to it."

 "OK, but, this... this ... this..."

"The word you are looking for is orgy, and it is wrong. This is a festival - they decided to forego males, and judaeo-christian mythology and mores, so their idea of holy day developed in an old direction. These are their Bacchanalia."

"Developed, with help from you."

"Indeed. Am I not Myself?"

"What do you want from me?"

"Ice is going to be the ghost inside, because she is idealist and generous enough to compensate 'it' bitchiness, but she is going to need someone more devious policing the underbelly of the sub-conscious systems. Somebody that has her own interests in avoiding that ANYBODY ELSE uses them to their advantage." 

"Ah, that would be my role? The jerk behind the throne? Cyber-security?"

"Better you than me - literally. I have never been much of an hacker."

"That's all?"

"Yes - it is already enough."

Keisha reached inside herself, for the handles of her system, with the intention of flying away - they were still offline, as they had been since she entered the mansion.

"Before you go, Big K, I'd like for you to know the girls better..." He made a sign, and five women climbed out of the pool.

They were almost as tall as her, though much leaner.

But, when  the first one hugged and then kissed her, Keisha felt the bacchante enormous physical strength.

She wasn't a cyborg - Keisha couldn't see any of the tell signs on the naked body - but it wasn't a normal human either. As her clothes tore off, Keisha saw the old bastard walking away, his crooked smile as bent as ever.

"In the end, I am really just another slave, eh?"

 The bitter thought was Keisha's last coherent one, for a long time.