“What a magnificent creature! Such a powerful sense of… well, power! I’ve never seen anything like this before! How did you even discover our world, my dear giant friend? Are you a lost traveler from a faraway land? Your clothing looks nothing like anything we have on our planet, but my, do you look good in it! Such vibrant colors woven so perfectly into your outfit must have been extracted from a great divine plant, mashed to fine powder by your vast strength, am I wrong?”
Katie could only stand there, holding back giggles and furiously blushing as the emperor continued to fondle over her appearance. She has been implemented based on her looks before, as she was a fairly fit lady, but something about the emperor being much smaller than she is seemed to enhance the effect by a bit. It may just be how Katie could easily crush the emperor to pulp if she really wanted to, or could even kill him by simply dropping him; a drop from this height would surely be fatal, or just how utterly powerless those tiny men are to her actions, should she decide to do anything. Something, that’s for sure. Whatever it is, it has to be something with being a massive giant in a land of tiny people.
The newly-appointed General Thomas walked over to the emperor, who was actually quite a short and dumpy guy. She can’t help but notice that the emperor barely came up to her shoulder, a stark contrast to the propaganda that depicts him as a mighty figure, almost god-like, almost like Katie, actually. Damn, she was dying to know more about Katie. Such a kind and innocent girl, they were lucky that it was her that was the giant, and not someone hungry for power or crazy. Katie has more than enough power to level even the largest cities, and yet she decides to control herself. That’s sure hard to come by. Thomas knows that she would struggle to find another person, male or female, that was as disciplined as Katie was. They would all have probably gone mad and razed a city or two to get their true sense of power out. In fact, Thomas herself will probably have gone and crushed a few neighborhoods herself, enjoying her time in the spotlight as those civvies admired her muscular body. She was particularly proud of her body, having been faced with much higher standards than the male recruits had ever faced. For some reason, unknown to even the emperor himself, the female trainees had to score better on the physical examinations in basic training. It had the side effect of ensuring that all of the female applicants had a fit body by the time they graduated from boot camp, although perhaps that was the reason for the harsh regulations. Maybe it was all because some brat higher up the chain of command wanted some pretty ladies in their army, however messed up that would be. In any case, all it had managed to do was to create a disproportionate female majority in the higher ranks of 2 of the 3 branches of the armed forces; ever since The Great Shrink, the need for an air and space forces fell massively, seeing that flying machines were all but useless now, impossible to control, not to even mention the complexity of the technology.
As much as Katie had enjoyed the emperor’s endless praise and compliments, she knew that she had to finally ask a much more important question. Well, important to her, at least. Katie was a powerful goddess, well, the goddess, according to the ancient scriptures, and winning her trust and support were at the top of the emperor’s interests. Which is also probably why he was quite shocked and a bit displeased when Katie had asked for him to direct her right towards the capital.
“W-why of course, G-goddess Katie! If I am not mistaken, there should be a large town about a day’s walk from here in that direction, and from there, we should be able to simply follow the highway until we reach the capital! You know what they say, every road in the empire leads to Minimi! Although… and if I may ask, will you please be kind and gentle with my little subjects, please?”
“Minimi? Like… Miami?”
“Miami? So the myths are true, then? There has actually been a civilization hundreds of years ago, on this exact same planet, that shares our name? Say, you must know if they are still the powerful empire as the scriptures claim, some say that the Miamians had unified all of the continent, whichever one that was! I don’t know about you, my goddess, but the vast expanse of Florida sounds much bigger than whatever this continent could possibly me, and guess who has been tasked with the divine duty to cleanse this holy land of all foreign filth? Well, seeing that you have chosen to descend from the stars and heaven above and bless us with your divine grace, then I must understand now that it is our duty, as citizens of Minima, blessed by our Goddess Katie, to unite the great land of Florida once and for all!”
The soldiers who overheard the emperor cheered in delight, finally having found a purpose for fighting. The Kingdom of Minima was already one of the strongest kingdoms on the Floridan continent, it shouldn’t be that difficult to conquer the entire world from here, should it? The world was, after all, surrounded entirely by water, so there would be no place that the rebels could run off to, seeing that they had nowhere to go but the endless ocean. It was either surrender and join the empire, or to be utterly destroyed. In the soldiers’ eyes, there appeared to be nothing that could have gone wrong, right?
“You do know that the chances of this “Minimian” empire taking over the entire world are slim to none, right?” The familiar sassy British voice was back, Madison having finally woken up from her computerized nap. It may seem illogical, but smart AI like Madison must periodically rest to stay effective. Well, she is available whenever Katie needs her, but staying active for more than 16 hours in a day could risk damaging their code from overuse. An AI’s rest time literally affects their service life; an AI that rests for at least 40 hours a week can be expected to last for millions of years. Although one thought does nag away at Madison… even with the hardlight avatar giving her a solid form, she will never be a true woman. Katie, as dumb and unintelligent as she is, is still much more human than she ever will be. She breathes the air, walks on the ground, her stomach breaks down the food she eats, her soft soles pressing and shaping the ground beneath them. None of which Madison will ever be able to do. She is a computer and her purpose is to computer, to assist her human operator. Katie… she has no objective. She has free will.
Quite honestly, apart from that odd moment where they had interrupted my run, walking like a giant in a world of tiny people has been pretty fun! Everywhere I go, everyone has treated me like a goddess, and quite truthfully, I’ve felt more like one with each passing minute! I could have totally wiped out everyone I’ve seen so far, but honestly, doing something like that just did not feel right. I felt that it was now my responsibility to look over these lil’ guys, to keep them safe from this new world I find myself in. Hopefully rescue from other planets should arrive any day now, even if it was just a single person checking on us. Then again, it has apparently been tens of thousands of years since the conflict… if anyone were to arrive, they should have been here for thousands of years…
“Madison, has any rescue or other vessel arrived on Earth since I first went into sleep?”
Katie had nearly forgotten about that little voice in her ear, she’s been too immersed in the tiny peoples’ technology to have remembered about Madison. After all, after staying in a land like this for a few days, something as advanced as artificial intelligence seems prohibitively advanced.
“Well, you see, Katie…”