Ravens of Eternity

219 The Patriarch Falls, Pt Raijin hovered in front of the logic circuit housing the base’s Command Intelligence. She was connected directly to it through its terminal, and was deep in her Machine Trance.

The data structures inside the entire databank was nothing like what she had seen in previous settlements. In here, it was more of a multidimensional metropolitan that existed on multiple planes all around. The only things she saw were huge swaths of code no matter which direction she looked, and it reminded her a little of the city inside of Tartarus Base.

Streams of code zoomed past her and bounced between adjacent planes, and noted that their data was twice as resilient as normal.

She felt a little overwhelmed by it all, and felt small compared to the sheer size of everything.

Especially compared to the Command Intelligence in the center. It wasn’t a dark cloud like Security Intelligence was. Instead, this appeared to be a smooth obsidian ball. Portions of it stretched and morphed, which shot out hardened tendrils to the dataplanes around it.

The tendrils embedded itself into the planes and injected code directly into their runtime processes. Then, once that entire sector switched out its commandset, the tendrils withdrew back into the main body and disappeared.

But this process occurred constantly, and dozens of its spindly arms shot out at the planes all around, over and over. She kept an eye when and where it struck as she prepared to attack.

Then, her consciousness split out into her Mirror Ghosts all around the Command Intelligence, between it and the dataplanes that surrounded it. At the same time, she released her Truesight Engine inside of the Security Intelligence’s logic circuit.

There, the two Intelligences fought for control of the circuit.

.....

When the Command Intelligence moved to assist the Security Intelligence, Raijin’s Mirror Ghosts blocked its tendrils at every turn. They performed Flash Redirection Loops and flung the tendrils back at ComInt’s circular body.

The energies lashed into its outer structure, and split it open at the point of impact. And for a split second, revealed the underlying code for Raijin to see.

Its regenerative subroutines kicked in almost immediately, and patched any code it was missing within the span of milliseconds.

Beyond that however, her Mirror Ghosts blocked Command Intelligence from all sides and prevented it from jabbing the dataplanes and logic circuits around it. If it could feel frustration and exasperation, it would have lashed out in anger.

Instead, its code automatically requested more system resources and sped up its attempts. With just a fraction more computing power, it was able to nearly double its request time. And in turn, its tendrils shot out with alarming speed.

Raijin was hard pressed to contain all of them, and struggled to orchestrate all of her Mirror Ghosts’ counterattacks. Each and every Redirect Loop was a strain on her, and having dozens of them fire off every second began to tax her heavily.

She hung on despite it all, and watched with glee as Command Intelligence lashed itself over and over again.

Her physical body felt the logic circuit heat up as it began to overwork its chipsets.

Raijin turned towards the fight between her Truesight Engine and the Prophet’s Security Intelligence. The two were in a pitched battle with each other as well, and her Engine had captured exactly half of SecInt’s logic circuits resources for itself.

They were, for the most part, on equal footing.

Their Hounds tore into each other as Datamines detonated under them. Sparks on both sides streamed towards the other, and chipped away at the reinforced barriers that kept their core code safe.

It looked like it was a stalemate – for every subprocess her Truesight Engine could devastate, the Security Intelligence was able to pay back in kind. However, she knew that she had the upper hand.

She had seen how messy SecInt’s code was deep down. It performed better than most other intelligences, but had too many operands to achieve it. Her own Truesight Engine was, in essence, an optimized and highly slimmed down version of SecInt.

It could easily perform anything SecInt could do, but fractions of a second faster.

And as the seconds fell, its lead only grew further. Its processes and operations completed faster, and achieved its goals ahead of its opponent.

Raijin watched with awe as her code’s effectiveness increased exponentially over time. Its attacks became more potent while its regeneration routines sped up. Security Intelligence was picked apart moment after moment, and became more and more feeble as time marched on.

Within twenty seconds of her initial attack, Security Intelligence was reduced to a patchwork of code. Its once-ominous cloud was reduced to strings of incoherent data.

Within thirty seconds, Security Intelligence was no more.

Raijin’s Truesight Engine took its place and expressed full control over its logic circuit, then spread itself to every adjacent dataplane. It began to vie for control over the other installed Intelligences, even within their own circuits.

Terminals within Primary Security and in Security Stations across the base all began to flicker as their code was replaced.

But even then, her control wasn’t complete. In order to fully validate her operation, she needed Command Intelligence to approve it. So she turned back towards it and focused on its actions.

Once Truesight had eliminated and taken over Security Intelligence, Command Intelligence ceased its own attacks. It had torn itself open a great deal, and now sat quietly and regenerated its outer shell.

Raijin determined that it was calculating a counterattack, but she wasn’t sure how it was going to do it. All she could do was wait and react for the time being.

It suited her just fine, as it allowed her Truesight Engine to truly dig in its heels.

There was a lull, such as right before a hurricane struck, and all circuits were quiet. And then, out of nowhere, ComInt struck with blinding speed.

One of its tendrils shot out towards a Mirror Ghost, but was reflected like before. Only this time, it shot out dozens more tendrils at the same Mirror, but a fraction of a second after.

It was in that microsecond, when the Redirection Loop switched between a reflection state to a deflection state, that those tendrils slipped through. They crashed into the Mirror Ghost and obliterated it into nothing.

All of the tendrils withdrew, save one. That one slammed into the dataplane the Mirror was protecting, and injected a new instruction set. And just like that, her Truesight Engine’s expansion was slowed down a great deal.

It only took a moment for Raijin to replace the Mirror Ghost, but the damage was already done. In order to undo it, she needed root control.

Raijin grinned at the challenge. Then she intertwined her fingers, and stretched them out in front of her.

“I have studied you enough, and seen plenty of your underlying routines,” she said. “I hope you are ready for a Full Code Refactor, because you are long overdue for one.”

~

Azrael ran from pod to pod in a mad hurry. And as she went, she deactivated each and every halo that she came across. Although she deprived those bodies of their memories, she also prevented their minds from further conditioning.

As her body raced across the room, her mind raced to find a way to undo it.

But she could hardly focus. Her mind was frantic and her heart was in shambles. She felt as though she couldn’t move fast enough, or stop the halos hard enough. But there was little else she could do, at least for now.

Behind her were Claire and Xylo, both of whom kept an eye out for any movement around them. Neither could help but see pod after pod of Prophets in the process of “creation”. And both were utterly sickened by what they saw.

“I’ve seen soldiers stitched back together in regen tanks before,” said Xylo, “but nothing like this. Not even close.”

“I have, sorta,” said Claire. “Or at least through evidence footage. Some sick doc was harvesting organs from clone bodies, and sold them on the black market for... you don’t wanna know. But that was also nothing like this.”

“They’re all born here,” said Azrael. “Every Prophet ever was... designed and put together right here. If not in this room, then in the rooms next to this. I don’t wanna know how many there are...”

They had all seen the Prophets all over the ‘Casts. They had seen how their violent, murderous actions caused so much mayhem and destruction and death, all across the Federation. All the while, they always spewed on about whatever message their Father wanted them to.

Usually, it was in declaration of their supremacy over everyone else, and that their legacy was going to persist until the end of time itself.

Xylo had taken to exterminating them with an almost joyful glee – she had long since had enough of their violent, bigoted dogma. But now that she saw what they were underneath, all she could feel was pity.

And a bit of heartbreak on top.

“Do... do we kill them?” she asked. “I feel like that’s what they would want us to do. I mean, this...”

She pointed a shaky finger at a partially-built Prophet whose mind was being prepped for Father’s conditioning.

“This isn’t life,” she finished.

“I don’t know,” said Azrael. “Maybe, but I hope we don’t have to. I’m hoping I can fix this, or undo it. At least a little of it, you know?”

As he stepped up to the next pod, Azrael gaped wide in surprise. A mix of emotions flooded her as she looked at the partially-printed Prophet in front of her.

“Callie?” she said. “What the hell?”

Claire also ran up to the pod and looked carefully at the Prophet inside.

“It definitely looks like her,” she said. “I can sorta tell, even with that halo around her head.”

“They all look kinda the same to me,” said Xylo.

“There’s small differences,” said Azrael. “Remnants of the people they used to be. It’s why I believe they can be saved. If there’s a tiny bit left, maybe I can pull them out.”

She stepped right up to the pod’s terminal and immediately reviewed its log. There were copious notes listed in it, but she read through each and every one.

–

Drenn – Child 099. Codename “Callie”

106) Creator’s Note: Origin was Tarsus, I think? Hardly matters – was three when I got her. Perfect for early trials.

107) Creator’s Note: originally brown haired, light. Brown eyed, dark. Skin – dark olive.

112) Creator’s Note: body prepared, mind extracted

145) Creator’s Note: extraction completed, body reprocessed

146) Creator’s Note: new body built, fresh genetics, good roots

148) Creator’s Note: mind implant 1st try: failure. Am tired of these.

149a) Creator’s Note: re-engineered 10% original genetics, implanted into new body

149b) Creator’s Note: mind implant 2nd try: partial failure. Sigh

155) Creator’s Note: mind implant 13th try: full success, finally. This one required 34% original genes for equilibrium. Average at best, not like 016 and her 7%, but a solid platform nonetheless. Worth keeping.

...

...

467) Automatic Log: 099 v2.2 signal ended. Downloading memory.

470) Automatic Log: 099 v2.2 memories fully encoded.

471) Automatic Log: 099 v2.3 memory upload process started.

481) Automatic Log: 099 v2.3 memory upload process completed.

482) Automatic Log: 099 v2.3 education reapplied.

.....

483) Automatic Log: 099 v2.3 body released.

484) Automatic Log: 099 v2.4 printing started.

485) Creator’s Note: despite being only a 34%, she has caught up to 017’s capabilities. Perhaps there is merit to such a high percentage after all. Time will tell.

486) Automatic Log: 099 v2.4 reapplying Prophet template

499) Automatic Log: 099 v2.4 education process halted, 14% progress

–

Azrael clutched at her chest as she read Callie’s entire life. It scrolled past the screen as though she was a product in development. Some sort of live test model whose value was simply as a series of incremental numbers.

Worse, that their memories were made completely malleable, and were written, overwritten, softened, and warped all at the same time.

Layers of memories wrapped over top an empty shell, programmed to move and behave based on someone else’s dreams, for someone else’s ambitions.

But all wasn’t lost – Azrael also saw her original genetic data within the muck. A third of the girl was still herself and she hoped that she could somehow draw out more of it.

She looked at the partially-empty shell that was Callie with a renewed determination on her face.

“I’ll save you,” said Azrael. “I promise.”