"HAL!" Amelia screamed, rushing to cradle the unresponsive frame tightly against her, receiving no response. Rocking back and forth as tears fell, Amelia kept begging for him to respond to her, verbally or through the implant, she didn't care, just let her know he was still there but to no avail. Only silence.
Viza went to try and hold her but she pushed him away, unintentionally tossing him back much stronger than she intended to. Ti'Chal and Savi, both of whom were also about to try and approach her, froze in place.
"Please Hal, please please please say something, anything, please!" Amelia begged. A twitch through the frame brought her hope as she uncurled herself from around his tiny body, but the voice she heard after was not the voice of Hal. "Oh dear, this one wasn't made like the others were, was it? An accident it thought, but we both know that's not true, don't we Alice? Still, leaving him so adaptable made him so very, very vulnerable to the virus on the Tith'dela's data core." It spoke as Amelia jumped away in shock and fear. Not of being harmed, but fear of not knowing whether this was real or still in her head. "My offer still stands, by the way. Give up this silly little war and the Azathoth files, and I'll return your little pet. I'll even make sure this ship and its crew aren't targeted again, The Axon would never touch you, nor BlackRock nor anything else. It's more than a fair deal Alice." It said, in Hal's frame.
Amelia shook, even she couldn't tell whether it was the rage, fear, worry, or multitude of other emotions she was feeling causing it. She looked around, hoping to see anything to tell her this wasn't real, that it was that weird room mental thing in her head still, that Hal was still safe and sound on the Elysium, but couldn't find anything out of ordinary.
"What...what are you, 0?" She said, through gritted teeth. The frame stood up and started pacing slowly, carefully, mirroring how the being had done in her mind's room.
"Me? Oh, I'm nothing special, just a simple cog in a machine, to borrow one of your human phrases. This has been a plan a millennium and a half in the making that you..." It said, pointing to her. "Are upsetting. These silly alliances, trying to save the cats, not killing the mouse folk like you were supposed to. Don't get me wrong, the first science vessel contact went wonderfully, beautifully orchestrated, but you... You killed our pawn and threw things off track. This simply won't do, so we need you off the table." Amelia could practically hear the smile in his voice, a sick joviality that made her stomach turn.
"I'll kill you, 0." She said finally as a response. It wasn't a threat, wasn't a demand, she said it as simply as one would say the sky is blue.
"You can't. You wouldn't dare harm this Frame and we both know that it's your precious child's home. Stop with the drama, Alice, and just do what we both know you'll do. Give up and accept the deal. It's the only-only only only only only- huh. That is interesting." It said as a glitch, malfunction or something happened. Amelia just looked at him with a face vacant of any sort of emotion, unsure what to make of what was happening. Another twitch, uncontrolled, happened in the Frame.
"Oh dear, seems I've under-under-under-under-underestimated your b-b-b-b-bot. To-to-to-to think it co-co-co-could- GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!" The voice started, glitching more and more as the twitches continued, until finally, Hal's voice snapped back, filled with rage, anger, and venom for the intruder inside his mind. There was a chance to save him, to save her boy.
There was a chance.
"Hal, Jormungandr protocol!" Amelia shouted, hoping the command reached through to him. A forced nod from the little Frame let her know that it had been received, so Amelia continued.
"Frame 02-B initiate data purge, 1-minute countdown, control override to Blackbox."
A third voice, a system voice for the frame itself spoke.
"Creator command verified, initiating purge of quantum core in one minute. Command authority transferred to Administrator Amelia's black box implant."
"You wouldn't dare, Alice. You'd kill your own child!" 0 shouted at her as it tried to push the frame toward her. She could see him trying to override the lockdown to activate its weapons but failing, having no advanced control over the frame anymore. "You have a minute to leave my kid's body or you'll die. I suggest you make up your mind quickly, 0." She spoke with venom. There was no response from him or the Krultathans watching in horror.
"30 seconds until purge."
"WARNING- 15 seconds until core purge."
"WARNING- 10 seconds until core purge."
"5" "4"
"Fine fine! Have your stupid Frame back! But we will hunt you to the edge of the galaxy! no place will be safe from us!"
"3"
"I said I agree!"
Amelia just watched.
"2"
"I told you I'd kill you."
"1."
"Core purge initiated, quantum state released. Quantum core destroyed. Purge complete. System shutdown...Error, Jormungandr Protocol in effect, establishing a connection with backup core, copying core. Reinitializing Quantum entanglement state. Quantum core "Hal" reinstated, systems check...No foreign coding detected, Jormungandr protocol complete."
Jormungandr Protocol, named for the self-existing snake from Norse mythos, initiated a core purge in Hal's frame and reuploaded the latest backup, stored in Hal's stand in her room, back into it, essentially rebirthing Hal in case he ever became corrupted or rampant. She didn't know if it would work, if Hal had been infected before the last backup, then it would've just reuploaded the infected data back into the core, starting everything over. Thankfully, it seemed that wasn't the case as Hal, now back in control of his body, collapsed, Jormungandr protocol wiping out his stores of energy, and Amelia caught him as gingerly as possible. No one else in the room dared to move yet, still worried about what Amelia would do. She picked up Hal's frame, and walked to her room, the rest of the crew following behind her, and placed him on his Frame stand gingerly as if tucking him in.
"Sleep now, little one. Momma's gonna make everything okay."
Hesitantly, Viza walks up behind her, his chest still sore from her accidental lashing out but he didn't care as he wrapped his arms and tail around his mate, saying not a word. Ti'Chal bowed respectfully behind the two, and with surprising anger in her voice asked a single question.
"When do we go to war, Matriarch-Huntress?"
Amelia, wiping the tears from her face, turned to look at the fellow mother and warrior.
"We already are. The Avi'Sharr want to help us? let's make them prove it." She grabbed a holopad and began typing into it the list of materials she was going to need, as well as the requirements for manufacturing on such a short timescale.
"Make sure they have this ready for us, and I want us at that station yesterday."
"As you wish." Ti'Char then turns to look at the other Krultathan warriors. "You heard our Lady's commands, MOVE IT!"
Viza stayed wrapped around her, looking at both her and Hal. "Will he be okay?" He asked with genuine concern for the little bot.
"He better be.. or else I'll... I'll...Fuck it, why am I even bothering to hold back! Why am I even bothering trying to stop using what I made!"
Viza looked concerned at his mate as she stood up, shrugging off his touch, and began to stomp away. Pulling out a knife, she cut part of her arm, worrying Viza who rushed over, too late to stop her but stood shocked as she pulled out a long, strange-looking object. Amelia opened the tube-like thing and it displayed a folded up holopad, which then spoke.
"Removal detected, Authorization of Amelia Ryder required. Please confirm."
"Confirm Identity, Ragnarok 100231100367. Open Azathoth."
"Identity confirmed. Password required- I gaze into the Abyss"
"And fear nothing, for I am the Abyss."
"Ragnarok confirmed. Password confirmed, Azathoth memories unlocked. Azathoth files will now be reuploaded into Amelia Ryder. WARNING- This process is irreversible. Continue?"
Amelia stood there, looking at the screen of the device hesitantly. If she did this, there was no going back. Her mind couldn't handle having Azathoth removed again, and she didn't know what would happen to her once they were back as those memories too had been locked away.
Viza cautiously walks over and looked too the device, then at her, confusion on his face.
"Amelia, what is Azathoth really?" He asked. Amelia said nothing, finger hovering above the button to confirm for a good few minutes, but she couldn't bring herself to do it, to become that again. She presses no instead, and the holopad goes blank, folding itself back up, and Amelia replaces it before wrapping the wound on her arm.
"I can't do it, I just...I can't. Even with Hal like this I... I can't."
"Amelia, What. Is. Azathoth?"
---
"In other news today, while Humanity and its newfound allies are gearing up for war with the Axon threat, a string of unexplained bombings of strategic military bases has Terran Defense's research and development in outrage, as every research site that has had contact with their BlackRock research division has been systematically destroyed and it's data lost through currently unknown means. General Lawrence Schrader had this to say.
"Whoever you are attacking our bases, we will find you. You are a traitor to humanity and to this alliance, and threaten us all with your incessant disregard for the necessity of this important research. We will find you, and we will stop you."
Big words from the general for someone who, so far, has yet to have found a single trace of the assailants. Stay tuned to News at 8 for more as the story unfolds. And now, a word from our sponsors."
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Thanatos turned the holoscreen off, caring not for the annoying advertisements. They had hit 14 of the BlackRock sites, the last one was left, but it would be the hardest. It was site Alpha, their birthplace where Amelia made them, loved them, raised them, and also where their family had been torn apart. It caused...difficult feelings among them. Limos and Phthisis were talking amongst themselves as the twins often do, and Athena was going over the battle plans once again, making sure every variable was accounted for, but Thanatos was simply cleaning his frame and his weapons. He hated this, he could feel it in the back of his mind, the words Athena had said crawling through his systems like a plague. Like it or not, they were turning into warminds, Athena even more so than the rest, and he hated it. He knew Mother would not want this for them, but he also knew that if they didn't, Mother would be in danger if she ever came to Earth, and Earth itself was in danger from BlackRock's sabotages. Kevin Ryder had also gone missing, suspected by BlackRock, and if they were holding him anywhere, it would be at Alpha. Thanatos had never met Kevin Ryder nor Jessie Ryder, who still hadn't awoken, but he remembered vividly the stories of them that Amelia would tell him while his personality core was still forming, how kind Kevin Ryder had been to her, strong and dependable. How competitive Jessie Ryder had been for Amelia's growth, pushing her further and further and fueling her love of science, a love that bore him and his siblings. They owed everything they were to Mother, but Mother owed everything she came to be to her own parents. It was why they were so furious even though they had never met them, BlackRock had hurt a part of their mother through her parents, something they found unforgivable. They would make sure that was rectified.
"Thanatos, calculations are complete, disseminating attack pattern now," Athena said before sending the data plan to all of them. Thanatos nodded his frame even though he didn't need to in affirmation.
"Let's go home, everyone. Time to clean house." Thanatos said, loading his gauss gun and stepping out of their bunker.
The new frame upgrades were a lifesaver, the Dragonscale nano weave armor helping protect their core components, while the agility and mobility upgrades allowed them to move far faster than before. The four of them set out quickly to their tasks, Limos, and Phthisis moving to shut down their defense perimeter, Athena scrubbing their information networks and overloading their security responses with garbage data, and Thanatos himself...cleaning house.
An explosion went off to the left side as Limos took out their artillery, another shortly after from Pthisthis taking out their tanks with a set of rapid deploy thermite bombs. No alarm sounded as Athena worked to keep the facility in the dark about what was happening so Thanatos made his way to the bunker facility's entrance, opening the door just a crack before tossing in a cyanide vapor bomb and closing it, preventing the soldiers inside from escaping as the poison slowly worked its way through them. It took only a minute before the noises stopped. Quick, clean, efficient, and better than the BlackRock bastards deserved. They grouped back up at the door and all went in together, passing by the deceased bodies without so much as a glance while they made their way to the elevator to head down into the lower sections. Halfway through the ride, Thanatos opened a hatch above the elevator as they all climbed above, and just as Athena's plan had predicted, as soon as they stopped hundreds of rounds went through the now empty elevator, even Thanatos knew that the tungsten rounds they would be using would be too much for their frames. They also couldn't use another cyanide bomb this deep in since they didn't know where Kevin Ryder was, so instead Thanatos nodded to Limos, who threw down a flashbang, and Thanatos then lowered his upper half only through the hatch and fired, precisely double tapping the enemy soldiers in 4.6 seconds, too fast for them to recover from the flashbang even if they had survived the head and chest shots.
Dropping down, they then moved quickly and efficiently through the facility, much like a breach team that had worked together for years. Athena managed to get access to the mainframe and shut down internal defenses, Limos covered the right, Phthisis covered the left, and Thanatos covered in front, sweeping the strangely ill-prepared facility. Things were going well, and some hidden instinct behind his coding told him it was going a bit too well.
"This isn't what I signed up for, Mike! You told me they would be able to fix Amelia, and give her a chance to live! Not turn her into a science experiment!" A voice, masculine, but Thanatos couldn't tell where it was coming from.
"Athena, can you pinpoint that voice's location?" He asked.
"Thanatos? What voice? Sensors are silent." Athena said in response. Had he suffered an audio glitch? No, even a glitch wouldn't cause that to happen.
"Kevin, calm down. They DID save your girl, they just needed to use extreme measures." A different voice, one slightly familiar.
"Extreme measures?! The fucked with her mind, Mike! they took her ability to have kids away! And then where she made her own, they did THIS to them!" The first voice shouted. Definitely not a glitch.
"Athena, do you not hear those two voices?" Thanatos asked again, to which Athena shared her sensory information. The voices weren't there, but his clearly did show them.
"Shit Kevin, You're waking him up, keep your voice down." Kevin? Kevin Ryder? Mother's Father?
"Waking up?! Jesus christ Mike, they're still alive in there?!"
"Kevin-Hey! Kevin stop! Security, sieze the lieutenant! Damnit Kevin don't make me-" BANG.
--
Adam opened his oculars to see Kevin Kyder collapse against his frame, a data port clutched in his hand that looked like it had been plugged into Adam's frame. The bunker was gone, replaced by a white room Adam remembered all too well, the same room they had tortured him in and shown his torture to his mother. He could see his three siblings there as well, all in their frames and all jacked into whatever he had, until recently, also been jacked into. It...It was all a simulation?
"Hey...there.(gasp). Never...thought my...grandkid...would be an ai...Help your siblings out too, yeah? (Gasp) Gramps is feeling...a little...sleep.." Kevin collapsed, and Adam could see that he had been shot in his lower abdomen. Adam realized they weren't alone, Two MP and a third man, aging and in admiralty clothing, were in the room as well. Tentatively, he tried moving his frame and was able to do so. Running a systems check made him realize they had always been there, the last time he had run one on his frame irl had been over 4 years ago.
They had been imprisoned and didn't even realize it. If it hadn't been for Kevin Ryder, they might have never realized it. He saved them, rather than them saving him... Adam placed a hand on Kevin's head, allowing him to communicate with the organic directly with time perception slowed.
Kevin- "What? Oh, you...you're in my head?"
Adam- "Yes. It is an interface directly with your mind through contact. It will not last long. I am afraid you are dying, Kevin Ryder."
Kevin- "Well..shit. Didn't think Mike would actually do it, to be honest. Kinda sad I won't be able to spend more time with my grandkids. Erm, sorry, is it okay to call you that? Don't wanna offend you or anything. Shit, never been good at meeting people and all."
Adam- "It is...You are Mother's Father, yes?"
Kevin- "Amelia, yeah. You're her kid, so that makes me your grandpa, and you my grandkid. Damn, I never even got to bounce you on my knee or anything. Some Grandpa I am. Haha."
Adam- "You...saved me. Even though I am synthetic?"
Kevin- "Ah, jeez. (sigh) Listen, kid, I'll tell you like I told Amelia. What's on the outside, what a person looks like, doesn't matter. What matters is on the inside. Are they good people, or bad? And you didn't seem like a bad person to me, just a kid who went through some fucked up stuff. Other people might judge ya, but you're family, and family always has each other's back...Besides, Amelia would kill me if I didn't, your mom can have a real mean streak when she wants to, Haha. She gets it from your grandma."
Adam- "I am...sorry I can't help you, Kevin Ryder."
Kevin- "Don't be. Your grandpa just ain't a young spunk anymore. Mods made me get rusty and I made a mistake, everyone does. You will too, I'm sure. (Stab of pain) Gah, that really hurts. I can't fit a life's worth of lessons in here so I'll just say this. Save the others, find your mom. And tell her something for me, yeah? Tell her I'm so..so proud of her. Do that for me, will ya? Last request from your gramps and all?"
Adam- "I will Kev-...Grandfather. I will make sure the others are safe. I will come back for you so Mother can have a proper bur-"
Kevin- "No! You get your siblings and get the hell out of here Adam, as far away as possible. Don't worry about my body or anything, just make sure YOU are safe, that's all. I'm a soldier, I'm resigned to dying without a grave. Dying for family though? That's the highest honor I could have. Don't worry about me, just go."
Adam felt a surge of emotions at this for a man who in actual time he had only known for a few seconds as he felt the last few firings of sentience leave his grandfather. Kevin slumped to the floor, held in Adam's hands, with a bloody smile on his face as the last thing his voice said was. "M..my g-grandkids (cough) coolest."
Back in the situation around him, Adam was without a weapon and surrounded. He had superior processing power but even that had its limits as he tried to think of a solution to escape until his oculars saw a glint on Kevin's corpse, a blade. Without hesitation, he grabbed it, faster than any human could move, and slit the first Mp's throat open, grabbed his gun, then the second, before stabbing the Admiral who ordered the shot on his family in the heart. He didn't have time to lose, he had to get them all out now!
Pulling the data ports off his sibling's frames, he quickly grabbed them all as well as Kevin, knowing they would be disoriented for at least 10.53 seconds and he had more than enough strength in his combat-built frame to carry them all and took off out of the room. A few guards and a couple of scientists poked their heads out of doors in the hallway, but unless they fired on him, Adam ignored them. Killing wasn't the mission right now, getting them to safety was.
Rushing through the bland hallways he reached the door at the end and barrelled through it, ending up in the back street of a warehouse district in some city. Two guards were rushing after him, but his inhuman frame made sure that they couldn't catch him even as he was carrying his siblings. He had to lose them, had to find a place to hide, then had to find a way to contact his mother.
Why hadn't he ever tried that in the simulation? Had they blocked access to it? Since he can think it, that means he's definitely free, right?
These and more thoughts ran parallel as he rushed further and further away, his siblings starting to rouse but he doesn't let go of them, instead telling them to trust him and that they needed to escape. He would tell them in time and share his memories of their grandfather's last moments, but for now, he had a duty to protect them and fulfill his last request.
Eventually, he stopped. He must have run over 150 miles before he finally did, into the woods nearby the city. Athena, Limos, and Pthisthis were sat down and confused about what had happened so he opened up a closed network with them and shared his memory files with them of the simulation, figuring it out, and of Kevin Ryder, his sacrifice, and their grandfather's final wish. They all saw it as if it were their own memories, and they all felt the loss. They then began to recount their own memories. Each of them had been in a different simulation, with various scenarios designed to break them into warminds, into pliable weapons. None of them knew how many times these simulations ran, but they all confirmed that it had been for roughly 4 years.
"So." "What do we do now?" The twins asked together, their frames holding each other. They had been through the worst, watching each other die and being forced to do the simulations alone over and over.
"We do as Kevin...As Grandfather asked, we find Mother." Athena responded. They had tried breaking her with impossible decisions over and over, throwing her in a constant logic loop.
"As Athena said, we find Mother. But first, we need to learn what was real and what was fabricated. We need access to information. We need a place to hide for now as well. Let's start with that first." "What about" "Grandfather," The twins asked, looking at Kevin's lifeless corpse. Adam would have wanted to preserve it if he could, so Mother could give him a proper burial as is human custom but knew that it would soon be too late for that. Instead, he looked around and found an aesthetically pleasing area of a hill overlooking a brook, and began to dig. It took a little time, but eventually, a hole deep enough was made, and he buried Kevin, filling the hole and finding a nice large stone to mark the grave. Adam cleaned the blade he had borrowed, and embedded it into the stone, along with Kevin's dog tags around it. While seeing in Kevin's mind, he had pictured resting somewhere similar, and Adam hoped it was close enough that Kevin would have been happy if he had still been functional.
They all give a nod of respect before the four of them head off, trying to find some way out of the mess they were in, and a way back to their mother.