Chương 175: Chapter 174:The Ancient System Has a Terrible, Reasonable Idea

Magical fiber-optic cables snaked across Station 50, the control center on the World Tower's fiftieth floor. Evelyn had connected the Bifrost equipment to the ancient consoles; Sylvia, in white silk gloves, was comparing the command strings against her dictionaries. The central projection hummed to life. A green, inverted pyramid filled the air. [PRIMORDIAL KEYSTONE ARCHITECTURE] Design purpose: Prevent cascading collapse of the continental sub-strate. Current state: DORMANT. Fallback allocation: AVAILABLE.

Lucian folded his arms."' Fallback allocation.' That sounds expensive in a way I won't enjoy." He looked at Evelyn.

"Where's the off switch? Can we automate it? Pay someone else to run it?"

"No simple off switch." She tapped the keyboard.

"The design assumes that a failing civilization can no longer maintain a dis-tributed network. So it concentrates the load on the smallest pos-sible number of reliable individuals. Automatic extinction preven-tion. Ten thousand years ago, it worked." She sat back.

"Basically, the engineers got sick of people breaking things and hard-coded their most capable colleagues into the machinery." Lucian studied the flow diagram.

"From a risk-management perspective, that's remarkably effi-cient." The room went quiet. Eleanor, Sylvia, Astra, and Evelyn were all looking at him. He raised both hands.

"I hear it now." Eleanor came to stand beside the console.

"You like the design."

"Technically, it removes an incredible amount of waste."

"That wasn't what I asked." The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Lucian kept looking at the diagram. Unified System v3. 0 overlaid its analysis of the retrieved specifica-tions. [LEGACY DESIGN REVIEW] Priority: Operational continuity over individual freedom. Dependence on living operators: Extremely high. Claimed stability after successful allocation: Near-total, within design assumptions. [DESIGNERS' ETHICAL REVIEW] FILE NOT FOUND.

Five empty roles appeared in the projection: Energy Keystone, Sovereign Stabilizer, Archive Node, Technical Maintainer, and Supreme Guarantor. Sylvia stopped at clause fourteen.

"There's a condition here." She read it once more before looking up."'Following permanent synchronization, the designated Keystone shall not terminate its assigned function under any circum-stances.'" Lucian frowned.

"'Shall not'?"

"The translation is too weak. This isn't a prohibition." Sylvia touched the original text.

"It's a physical constraint. Cannot." She pointed to the ley-line connections.

"Body and soul become part of the network. No resignation. No leaving. No retirement." Lucian's admiration for the architecture cooled at once. An employment contract with no exit was already bad. Making the employee physically incapable of leaving took a special kind of dedication to the problem.

"If it needs someone to hold the energy supply…" Astra sat on a wooden crate, a half-eaten strawberry ice cream in her hand. She looked up at him.

"I could do that." Lucian turned. She had over eighteen billion Combat Power. She was also sitting there with ice cream melting down her fingers, offering herself to a machine whose contract did not end. He couldn't get a word out. Whatever reached his face made her draw her shoulders in.

"It hasn't allocated anyone yet," Evelyn said quickly.

"First it runs a compatibility scan and ranks the candidates. That only produces recommendations. A temporary assignment needs confirmation, and permanent synchronization is a separate stage." She opened the deeper diagnostic menu. A yellow prompt filled the screen. [CIVILIZATION FUNCTION-ALLOCATION SCAN] Search the connected continental network for compatible candidates? [Y / N] Lucian raised a hand.

"Nobody touches Y." Footsteps approached from the corridor. Regulus wandered in with a half-eaten apple, scratching his back with his free hand. He glanced at the console.

"This glowing button, son?" Click. His finger landed squarely on Y. The Tower's scanning arrays flooded the room with light. Lucian stared at his father.

"DAD!"