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Chapter 331: Trapped in Terroa
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“For you to be able to attack them and still not see a sign of retaliation, then it means that perhaps the existence called the [Terran-Human Alliance] is a monster controlled by someone or something else… and this data-network seems to just be an outer shell that was made to monitor the outside world and collect information for the [Alliance].”
“I can sense that it’s an AI on a whole different level that what is announced in the Net. It’s using a very wide and a very intricate network. If I may perhaps use more power…”
“You already know what I am trying to avoid so why still ask about it?”
“Well, boss, although I can read your mind, I still can’t process the reasoning behind it. I can always crush that AI and take over the system if you give me the order. Don’t you want to remove all trouble on your back and not worry about anything?”
“Cortana, it’s just part of the plan. But trust me; a living AI is more useful than a dead AI. I know you can crush that AI with a flick of your finger but what I want are subordinates who can lessen your burdens. What if the time comes that I need your entire processing ability but you can’t give it since you are supporting the Alliance’s mainframe?”
“Point taken.”
On his vision, Cortana displayed an honest look of understanding and even gave him a gentle bow.
Her short and quick reply is also in accordance to her ‘conversation partner’s personality algorithm’ setup.
“It is enough to negotiate with the AI. That way, we can ensure an equal degree of understanding with each other’s goals. If that AI ends up owing us a favor, then we can make sure that whatever we ask of it will be granted without a hitch.”
As usual, as soon as Siva thought of this, Cortana had already ‘recorded and archived’ it… although it was still far from actually ‘understanding’ it.
For now, she was limited to being able to process his thoughts according to a preset standard; but to actually understand it is still far-off in the future but not impossible.
She was built to learn, after all.
“Well, now that we have a bigger picture of the local data-network of the capital, navigating in the city had just become a piece of cake.”
As soon as he thought of it, Cortana took action.
“I already sent the message to your friends. They will now be able to look for the information that we need and secure al of the necessary items.”
“So the only thing left for us is Pistareen and the negotiation for Mega-Crates.”
“Ah, regarding resources, boss. I would like to remind you that you have just officially bankrupted yourself.”
“WHAT?!!”
“That 21 Million Zentra is your last money. You only have Z40,000 left in your wallet.”
“Shit. No way…”
“You also only have 100 NanoCubes, 4 Plasma Smoke Screen Grenades, 30 Stun E-Grenades, and because you modified a few of your masks and gave it away to your organization as part of the special rewards for Apostles Promotion, you only have four anti-glare masks left in you.”
“Am I… am I too…”
“Yes boss. You’re too much of a prodigal.”
“…!!”
“(//_//) nyaaaao~~”
“SHUT UP!!!”
Because he spent the last few hours creating and even editing the rewards for the members of The Company, he was left with no choice but to not mind spending his resources.
But to think that he’d run out in this manner and not be aware of it…
Siva was, right now, really and utterly shocked at everything he’s done.
He was really stunned to discover this weakness.
“Haaahh… what have I been doing lately? Well, anyways, everything I’ve done was a necessary step. For now, I should just finish here and log out to rest.” When he murmured at this part, he thought of the two puppets he left with Scion and considered the words he heard earlier from his trusty assistant about the shell caging this city.
“Boss, you worry too much. As long as she has that [tower], the [Smasher] will protect her. And although this is just temporary, with my level of programming, no hacker in this plane will be able to crack the firewall I set up on the [Smasher].”
“I trust you on that part but I’m still worried about the [Destroyer] though. As long as I am not satisfied with its settings, I can’t leave it alone.”
Siva only made six [S-Generators] and one of them is installed in the [Smasher] —programmed to protect the [tower] at all costs. The rest of them were installed in his Asgard, with one being in the castle itself.
All of them had the same priority function to scan and defend the perimeters of the [towers] against any and all enemies.
The [Destroyer], however, was reliant on Scion’s [Orb] to function… and this, as well, is temporary.
If he can’t ‘install’ additional security measures to it, then what if while he was logged out, another batch of kidnappers appear and target her again?
He can’t let it happen a second time.
She is already his girlfriend, after all.
Thus, for the next few tens of minutes more, he dedicated himself on polishing the instructions and adding more detailed tasks into it —with all of them focused solely to her protection.
“Boss, the [Generator] replica you installed in the [Destroyer] won’t be able to carry the additional load of instructions. It was just for backup for when she becomes incapacitated and the time of its activation is limited to 30 minutes. If you add more load to its tasks, I’m afraid that you’d only cut the activation time in it.”
“How much will be left, exactly?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Okay. Then limit the range of its active scan from 100m to just 75m, will that improve the mileage?”
“Yes sir. 35 minutes.”
“Do it.”
Siva and Cortana went back and forth, polishing the emergency security tasks of the [Destroyer].
Only after a few minutes more did Siva stopped.
“This should do it. I hope nothing happens when I’m gone.”
“It’s just a few hours, boss.”
“Whatever.” He pulled his player panel and hover his finger above the [Log Out] button.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
He spent more seconds looking around the room and then decided to press it.
He waited for the pulling sensation of when his body is being logged out to come but… it didn’t come.
“Eh?”
“Huh?”
Is there a bug? He thought.
Both he and Cortana were surprised. He looked at his finger and checked if he had pressed the Log Out button and sure enough, it was still pressed on it.
Furthermore, the button was highlighted, telling him that he was indeed still pressing the right one amongst the list of options on his panel window.
“Something’s wrong.” Cortana felt it as well.
Siva’s mind blanked out and he began to panic as he recalled a certain incident in the Hapon Country a few decades ago that killed 6000+ people, perpetrated by the International Iris Terrorist Group’s extremist causes.
“No… what is this?!”
How could he even begin to explain this situation?
Siva pressed the button again and again but the same familiar sensation didn’t come to him. He really can’t log out.
Eyes fixed to the button being highlighted by his finger, he pressed again and again but nothing happened.
He was beginning to panic. No. he was already in a state of panic and his thoughts were clouded by fear and a great amount of anxiety.
“This can’t be… no... this is not happening to me.”
“Boss, please calm down. Your neural levels are rising too high! Boss, I’m drowning! Please stop!”
“No… no… NO…. NOOOO……!!”
“Boss, calm down! I can’t breathe!”
“This can’t be happening!”
“Grgh… kugh… kuk… kughk… grrrgh.. gfhg…”
“It can’t be… It can’t be —no! This is impossible!”
“—gahgk... B-Boss... please... calm… dow—ghk..”
There are the sounds of twisting static noises and when Siva heard this, he looked at Cortana who was twisting in an ugly manner.
Her cat —named Nekoneko— was crying cat cries at her feet with a worried expression.
For as much impossible as it may seem, Siva saw the look of pain on Cortana and it was this very expression that pulled him back from his stupor.
And yet, she continued to twist as if there was an invisible wall pressing tightly on her. It looked like she was about to die from being squashed.
“Cortana!”
When he called, it was as if the pressure vanished from her and she collapsed like a ragged doll on the imaginary floor on his vision.
The cat had a look of utter worry and the change on its expression was the last of his concerns as he ran over to her… that for some reason, in this room, she seemed to have blended in the space that only he could see.
Siva bent down and checked on her.
“Are you…”
Before he could even continue to ask, she held his arm and cut his words.
“Boss, you really have the ability to kill me. Just now, I could feel a murdering code hidden on your brain waves! Boss… I don’t know what fear is but right at this moment, if being permanently deleted can cause a computer program like me to fear it, then I at this moment is afraid of you…”
While she talked, she was panting and it all looked so naturally unnatural to him that he had even forgotten to ask the question of what air she is breathing.
For as far as he was concerned, she only exists inside his head so why does she have to pant?
Although her tone sounded normal without the hint of actual ‘fear’, her words slapped Siva like a real slap of thunder.
For a moment, he forgot the cause of his panic and the cause of Cortana’s almost instant death.
He shuddered at the content of her words.
“I can…… kill you?”
When he spoke this part, his mind worked at the real cause of this event.
His eyes wandered on his player panel.
Just moments ago, after polishing the last bit of commands on the [BM-Destroyer], he wanted to call it a day and log out but…
The [Log Out] button on his panel wasn’t working.
Unlike earlier, now that he had somehow purged a few chaotic thoughts away when he attended to Cortana, he could clearly now manage his own emotions.
Cortana looked at him and then looked around her as if she was looking at a world in its last moments to ruin; there was something only she could see that’s causing her to ‘worry’.
“Boss, calm down… let’s process the events. How this happened and how to cancel this effect will be found if we work together.”
“How? When? What angle? Where do we begin?”
Cortana closed her eyes and tried to process all the aspects regarding Siva’s thoughts and after a few moments, she looked at him.
“Boss, it all began 28 hours ago.”
Siva opened his eyes wide in confusion, and then by surprise processing the events according to the time she prompted.
“Before the dragon’s attack…”
“No boss, the locked memory.”
—before I logged in? Right after I got Cortana?!!
“So it has something to do with that [key]?”
The lost part of his memory, a few minutes of time earlier that even Cortana doesn’t have any access because her part of memory that pertained to that time had been sealed with a [key] label.
For some reason, Siva felt that this was another ploy of the evil creature called “fate” that plays the role of god to cruelly torture him.
—or perhaps that evil creature had a name, AG!
“Is this his doing as well?” he only asked it himself to urge him to think of possibilities but Cortana gave him his answer before he even landed on any other thoughts.
“Honestly, boss, I don’t think it’s his doing.”
“What do you mean?”
Right now, Cortana was already standing and Siva was seated on a chair in this luxurious suite.
It was soft to the touch but Siva doesn’t have the mind to enjoy or even praise the upholstery on this piece of furniture —or even on any of the gold-plated tables and cabinets in this room.
He was working his mind to the tip and bones. He was trying to discover what the missing links to these events are.
“Boss, I’m sorry, aside from the introductory parts on our meeting more than a day ago, I don’t have any other clues as to what had actually happened either; but what I am sure is that within the time that we have been talking about the house’s security, my primary function had made sure that there is no laps in the updated security network.”
“Then do you mean that this has something to do with either the two of us?”
“I am not sure of that as well, boss. With my new ability after I levelled up, even I myself wasn’t sure of my own limitations. Just like what I told you before, there seems to be a preset path and stages I must follow before I can even unlock my other capabilities. The thing is I don’t know what my next step is in order to level up.”
“Ahh…. this is all messed up.”
Siva slumped back first on his seat.
“I’m sorry boss. I also don’t have a way to directly check the house’s security from here. For some reason, something is blocking my direct access.”
Siva held his head.
It was starting to ache as if he was being drilled by metal screws.
He lowered his head to the point of facing the floor and he cupped his ears as he tried his best to isolate all sounds and just focus on the events of the past 28 hours. But…
“Nothing. I can’t remember anything.”
Siva was utterly lost in this and he can’t think what could have triggered this.
He then looked at her, “Is there no problem with your online access”
“Nothing.”
“Can you access the cameras in the house? At least try to access the one in the sala by hacking through the Net then finding your way into the house’s Network Access Port.”
“I will have to pass through a roundabout way to get to the IP in the house. Putting it blandly, I have to go on a trip around the galaxy to get back to the house. It would take me about a minute.”
“Do it.”
Cortana just stood there on his vision but she had her eyes closed and although she looked like she was only bathing in the sun, Siva could still feel that she was doing a processing task that might have been impossibly monstrous to scale using anything he had ever known in his life.
The moments felt longer when you’re waiting for them to pass –like running on the staircase of the apartment while having LBM, only to be inserted between old people with claustrophobia who can’t ride the elevators from the front and the back.
After 40 seconds, she opened her eyes and took a glance at him —wearing an awkward expression.
“So?”
“I got through.”
This was good news, Siva thought, but Cortana’s expression told him otherwise.
“Is there something else?” he asked and then he also processed the things she said, “Are there other people in the house?”
She shook her head. “No one is in the house right now. In fact, you are the only one in the house.”
He thought this weird and Cortana displayed an expression that portrayed confusion. This one is her first ever portrayal of a human-like emotion called confusion.
But instead of being glad that Cortana was going on a steady evolution on her personality algorithm right now, Siva only felt alarmed and conflicted.
“What is it?”
“The thing is… you’re the only person there in the house.”
Siva was confused. “Shouldn’t I really be the only one in the house? If I am then what’s wrong with that?”
“No, boss… nothing’s wrong with that. But what I mean is that you were waiting for me in the house when I managed to access the camera and I saw you smiling at me as if you were waiting for me…”
Siva felt goosebumps crawling on his skin with her answer. Upon looking at Cortana, she showed that rare ‘confusion’ again and he knew that she still have something else to say to him.
“What else is there?”
Like lava being poured down by the ice from the frozen tundra of the south, although his mind was in turmoil which made Cortana cringe, it wasn’t as hot and as chaotic as earlier, with there even a tiny hint of him slowly, noticeably, calming down.
Yes, he was surprised by her report but for some reason, now that he had reflected at it, ever since he had recovered these [memories], he could feel himself changing in a fundamental manner.
But it wasn’t an abnormal change like hot turning into cold, no. It was the ‘normal’ sort of change he seemed to be familiar.
All these [memories], for him, for some reason, is so familiar that although he had chosen to fully put his trust on it, he still find the shift oddly not astounding him.
Every time there is something shocking and very surprising that happens to him or around him, he was always able to calm down almost immediately.
This was the change.
It’s as if… there was nothing that could totally flip his heart and drown his senses into a prolonged chaos… even this event.
.
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Chapter Notes: Seriously, I wanted to change the title to “TiT” but I was afraid that a few destroyers would laugh at it and say “TiTs” which had a different meaning. So I fought with myself whose on the side of justice… and lost. Tsk. Curse it.
Oh, and don’t forget to leave behind a comment if you liked the chapter.
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