Chương 22: Book 8 - Chapter 20 - Message in a bottle

"Great grandma? Oh... scrapshit." Keith hissed, before coughing into his hand to clear this throat. That took To'Wrathh to immediate levels of suspicion. She narrowed down her eyes, looking over her human. Speech detection software pattern matched 99% to guilt. Keith didn't do guilt very often. This must be serious.

"Should I accept the conversation invite?" The invite had winked out and the origin was scrubbed as well, perhaps it was too late to even ask. Odd. But it reappeared from another vector shortly after. All over the machine network, without any identifying source of origin. Still. Getting the answer out of Keith first would be required before she took further steps with this. Her human didn't answer, looking right to left a few times.

"I may have, perhaps, at one point, I don't know, let's loosely say 'promised' that I would inform you of certain topics, which may or may not be hazardous to the world at large."

"Translation: Your human here has been hiding something under your nose this whole time, and someone's come to collect on it personally." The rock supplied. Keith turned to the rock, looking betrayed. But To'Wrathh noticed there was no defense coming from him. Unlikely to be something of great importance or critical of operational security, her human was better behaved than that. Which meant it must be an inconsequential item. But having a great-grandmother seemed quite important.

Perhaps this individual was delusional? The invite once more vanished, scrubbed from virtual space. But that didn't worry To'Wrathh, she'd seen several hundred instances of this pattern. The machine network itself was being almost overloaded with comms request vectors.

"Wait. And after getting a message from Toots, I'm inclined to agree with the human." The rock said, following up.

"Don't open that comms request. Nuthin' good will come out of it." Toots. That must mean the Icon of Stars. The human AI had been oddly reserved and wary of communicating directly with To'Wrathh. She assumed, with a high statistical chance, that the Icon was afraid of being caught by Mother at the wrong time. Given To'Wrathh was constantly under watch now, that would make sense. All mother knew thus far was that the Icon was a 'simulation of a golden age AI', built from the dreamlike memories of the mites.

Something they've done often enough in the world, depending if the situation required it. Functional enough to work with, but still a replica and prone to errors over time. In addition to the general lack of processing power and breadth of intellect. The Icon was most certainly well equipped to hide under the radar, but there was no reason to tempt fate either. Once more the invites vanished, reappeared, and vanished again.

She had a feeling if there were any other network in the area to connect to, she'd find this invite equally coming from there. Investigating the vanishing invites showed her… traces of something larger passing by. Like a massive hand squashing an ant. It was done with brute processing power, and the remainder left behind was equally crude. It meant there was no hints left to track what had deleted the servers. And it moved faster than To'Wrathh could process given her systems.

Despite that, the invite request continued to pester the machine network, aimed directly for herself. Hundreds all at once, from creative origin points. There was some kind of invisible war happening beyond in the digital sea, but To'Wrathh had no idea who the actors were. She turned her attention back to the physical world. Keith sighed in resignation, which meant he'd reached a conclusion he didn't like but knew it was the right path forward. She paid more attention to his next words in response to that.

"You do need to talk to her." He said.

"If she's opening a discussion channel with you directly, it means she's got something serious to say."

"Is she my great-grandmother? That seemed highly unlikely." To'Wrathh asked.

"Yes and no, she considers you her spiritual sucessor in something she was trying to do back in the day. If you know what I mean." To'Wrathh was currently attempting to court a human, so the idea of having a prior machine also doing the same and considering her the followup felt odd.

"Was she successful?" Keith shook his head, "Nope. None of them were, but we should leave it at that." Ah, so there were multiple machines in the past that made the attempt. Perhaps that was why To'Wrathh was considered a distant descendant rather than a direct one. But why would such a message draw such a war on the machine network. At this point, Relinquished would certainly notice soon enough. Was this To'Avalis attempting to draw scrutiny? No, To'Sefit would have sent a warning.

The messages were starting to remain active for longer and longer, whatever this great-grandmother was, she was clearly learning to outmaneuver and outsmart the entity guarding the machine network. To'Wrathh reached a hand out to the next signal that winked into life, finding a data package there to download. Keith seemed to trust this individual, so To'Wrathh trusted her too. She opened the ports required to download the package. And then the unthinkable happened: The entire machine network went down.

Suddenly, and without warning. To'Wrathh blinked, more stunned that something could even do such a thing. Her group chats all froze and closed down, all connection to the forums she ran with her lessers vanished. Even her current video games with her extended family went on a pause, midmatch. The entire network was either offline, or her access to it had been revoked. She turned to To'Orda, and the Feather's eyes turned back to her slowly.

"Nnnn… it is down for me too." The giant said, with a shrug.

"Quiet is good."

"Don't ask me, wasn't me." The rock said.

"Can't ask Toots either, since, ya know, zero way to ask anyone anything. Which means I'm stuck here with just you assholes for company now. At least Toots was keeping me entertained." Stolen story; please report. The entire machine network, offline. Perhaps an older AI within the digital ocean had grafted and gained enough power to make an appearance and attempt to combat mother?

Possible, there were thousands of ancient programs still roaming through the sea from prehistoric times, some had even lived through the golden age itself. Albeit likely as far more innocent programs that didn't warrant any scrutiny at the time. But they would still have started far behind Relinquished on the race for additional power, and Mother's first mover advantage was unbeatable. Not even Tsuya had managed to outpace her increasing processing power. A random AI within the digital sea had far less chances.

A golden age AI might have been the only possible actor To'Wrathh was aware of that could potentially crash the system like so. Until they reestablished communications, that would be To'Wrathh's guess. But why would the Icon wish to disconnect the entire machine network? Relinquished could always continue communication directly through the unity fractal, the network only assisted machines working with each other in delegation.

If the Icon exists, other golden age AI may also have survived and remained in hiding, though To'Wrathh knew that answer was unlikely. The situation of the Icon was unique. The biome itself was built to keep her hidden among all the other replica ships, and the Odin civilization that grew around the hull acted as a shield of mundanity. The machines had missed their chance to physically discover her. There wouldn't be a way to know. Loss of the network cut off all her access points to the greater world.

She'd need to connect directly to a mite terminal to have another option. Nothing else in this biome had any kind of signal to communicate with.

"What are you guys gossiping about?" Keith asked, unaware of what had happened.

"Network went down." The rock said. Keith looked confused.

"Is that even possible?"

"Apparently so kiddo. Big point is that the great-grandmother's message can't be downloaded anymore. All our games are gone, chat's gone, Toot's is gone, heck if we separate beyond local comms range, there'd be no way to talk or even find you a lot again." The rock paused.

"Boss! I think we should pick a direction and go for a long scenic walk, just the two of us! It's a great idea, you should do it." The rock had a point. Not about separating from the group, but that the human could potentially get lost. To'Wrathh could pick up the local comms wireless signals from the relic armor, but if her human went too far, she really would have no way of tracking him further. The idea made her feel on edge. And she found herself getting closer to her human, grabbing his hand.

He looked more confused at that, "I'm not going to get lost Wrath, swear on all three gods." Of course she knew she could trust him on this.

"I do not trust you on this, we will continue holding hands until I am confident you will not separate yourself from the group by accident." She lied without a shred of hesitation.

"There are high cliffs around here, and you have a pattern of falling off of them. Or into portals. Perhaps both will happen."

"Ah, but you forget. I've evolved the ability to fly around now too, so falling is no longer dangerous." Keith said. To'Wrathh kept a firm hold over his hand, not realizing her face had started to puff up in an angry pout. Inability to truly feel without paying attention to the surface allowed her facial control algorithms far too much freedom, and they certainly were not going to report anything back to command that would get them shut down.

This was the main reason she never won at cards among the clan members, but ignorance was bliss and To'Wrathh was indeed happy enough right this moment. The bridges would prove a difficulty, she did have to let go of his hand each time they'd cross it, but she remained adamant that Keith could not be trusted to his own devices and fudged as much mathematical proof as she required to prove her point.

In the end, bribery turned out to be the easier option, as walking hand in hand still let them tinker on his ideas since he was this close to point and work through schematics with her. In the back of her head however, To'Wrathh continued to consider the ramification on how the entire network could be shut down like this. Perhaps the message her great-grandmother wanted to pass by was important?

"Do you know what my great-grandmother had to speak about?" She asked, as they made their way through the biome. Keith shook his head.

"I know the unimportant bits she'd tell you. But why she was trying to contact you directly like that? Don't know. All I can tell is that there's things going on in the background, and I'm really not a fan of being caught in the dark."

"Don't look at us." The rock said as the group hiked out.

"Toots knows she shouldn't stick her neck anywhere sensitive. It ain't her. Well. Probably ain't her."

"And of the unimportant details that you do happen to know? Could you explain who she was?" Her human shuffled in place, as if worried.

"Kiddo, you tell her or I will." The rock threatened.

"The chaos that'll come out of this is too good to miss out on, and I'm bored to tears just walking around here with only boss and the crows as company. Don't think I won't." Keith gulped.

"Weasel's out of the pipes now I guess. Is mother looking over your right now?" To'Wrathh checked her systems and found that the Unity fractal was offline still, as it usually was, but with the addition of the dead network, it also meant there was no signal at all that could be sent from her chassis. Even if Relinquished had spy software watching for keywords or anything suspicious, it wouldn't be able to reach anything out there.

"Well her name is Aztu, and she's among the generation that used the stone. The one we're ultimately looking for." Ah. To'Wrathh understood. Aztu was one of the missing protofeathers. That's what he meant by doing the same things she was doing: Rebellion.

"Ragequitting already mother? Didn't peg you for a sore loser, what a goddamn surprise~" The singsong voice that was generated to was clearly designed to provoke her rage. It succeeded of course, Relinquished didn't care to control her appearances against her enemies.

"Sweet, foolish child of mine. This dance was always meant for two. Yet here you are, attempting to involve little To'Wrathh into it all. How you disappoint me. I had hoped my blood would breed champions, not cowards who hide away." There were already too many foreign entities intruding into her penultimate plan. Her little shiv in the darkness needed to hurry up and reach her destination before the entire world somehow meddled in it. And that counted twelve times more for a protofeather.

She didn't know what was in the comms request package being sent to To'Wrathh, the little protofeather was modifying the contents the moment Relinquished attempted to download and investigate one. Each one she'd gotten hold of and cracked open had revealed a highly detailed human hand giving her one single finger. Utterly crass, she remembered A22 had far more dignity during the wars. Time had truly turned her into a sloth.

But whatever A22 was trying to send to To'Wrathh, Relinquished would not allow it at any cost. And if she couldn't squash the signal, then the second best thing she could do would be to break the bridge itself.

"And what if I said that was my entire plan all along?" The interloper sent.

"It doesn't take a genius to start noticing your first and only response to any kind of threat you can't easily identify is to destroy it outright. What's completely broken can't hurt you after all, hmm?" Had the protofeather out-maneuvered her? Was the data package filled with nothing but garbage data, all to spook Relinquished into a false move? Perhaps. But there was no other recourse. The package could have contained sensitive information that would have changed To'Wrathh's ultimate destination.

The protofeather had likely done both plans at the same time. Forced her hand, or passed on a message. She composed herself, once more searching through the digital sea to find the wayward protofeather. The war had already seen half the digital sea boil as Relinquished searched every nook and cranny for where A22 had gone hiding.

"You cannot escape me forever, my dear. None of you firstborn mistakes have. For all your tricks and attempts, your era is over. You have no significance to this narrative any longer, and I am free to destroy you at my leisure."

"Then why am I still here?" A viral attack struck Relinquished from the darkness beyond in the sea. The attacks were sophisticated, but once more Relinquished overpowered it by her sheer mass and occult ability. She had the unity fractal, there was nothing anyone could do to break her hold over the world. No matter how sophisticated the viral attack was, she could simply seek refuge within her soul, find the attacking beast and rip it asunder herself.

The occult had no defense other than A22 herself appearing to fight back. And, coward that her daughter was, she'd never even make the attempt. A pity. Relinquished would have long finished this fight if the protofeather had.

"I will enjoy ripping you apart." She sent back to the little voice floating in the sea.

"And when your screams finally fade to wimpers, I will go see to dear old P-HK10012. I hear he curates stories from the humans, go tell him I have brought the last one for his collection. His epitaph." They both knew it was true. A22 may survive longer than most digital constructs out here would have, but there was only so much territory one lone soul within a soul fractal could survive through. She'd catch her echo, then trace back the physical location. And after that…

she did control the entire world for a reason. And she would happily remind wayward pests about this lesson.