“Careful,” Alphin spoke as Sarazen stroked his hand across the object. Sarazen almost laughed at Alphin's comment, it was clear that his captor was not concerned with his safety. Sarazen's weighty fingers appeared to activate one of the buttons and with great shock to all in the chamber, there was a sudden alarming tone and the screen flickered into life bathing the chamber in a cold luminescence. Utterances of hysteria were heard amongst the ranks and Kadheera's squeak was most prominent of all.
Sarazen looked at the screen and realised that the device on the desktop had some kind of manual input function. Subsequent use translated to text data on the screen. Sarazen shook his head in disbelief. The Mother was indeed the most primitive of machines, which led to the most profound question of all, how did she achieve such feats of engineering, organisation and innovation? Sarazen would have to bypass this confusing and limiting method of data retrieval if he was to discover the answers to these questions.
The soldiers shuffled about nervously whilst Sarazen worked, Alphin remained vigilant and constant in his aggressive posture. The leader was in no position to rush the troubleshooter, even he knew that he could not afford to lose out on the valuable information she had been keeping. He was determined to know the secrets behind The Mother's apparent control over the drones, the fact that she was of such a basic construction held great hope for him and his empire.
“I have appeared to gain entry to The Mother's core functions. I will attempt to learn her methods of data flow,” Sarazen announced. The tension in the room was unbearable. Some of the soldiers walked around the room, investigating the larger structures which Sarazen believed to be the storage banks containing archive data input by the human builders.
“Fascinating,” Sarazen murmured, as he retrieved more revelatory data.
“What is it?” Kadheera inquired, she seemed more tense than anyone.
“I have gained access to The Mother's list of directives, essentially her primary commands which were programmed by the humans. I have also discovered that during the reactivation of The Mother after the cataclysmic event, she experienced several catastrophic malfunctions and much of the archive data was in fact rendered inaccessible.”
“Continue,” Alphin suggested persuasively, the suspense was difficult to control.
“During her reactivation, severe power fluctuations caused a series of linked events which corrupted her primary command functions. In order to continue functioning, human intervention was required to either confirm or deny those commands as in the event of corruption, she could not continue in her function as set out by her creators. However, one of the primary commands that remained, was essentially an order to protect the integrity of both her core functions and archived data. As there were no humans left alive to act upon the information, she took it upon herself to accept the commands as they remained in order to 'survive'. Unfortunately these commands were incomplete and her continued function was based solely around the information that remained, the other prominent command being the continued preservation of organic life. In order to fulfil this command, she used what archived knowledge she had available to her to achieve this objective. Her archives were predominantly historical documents regarding the structure of human society and its culture. Using only the tools available to her, she attempted to recreate the human civilisation in order for them to do her bidding which ensured that the organic life remaining could flourish. The silicants were modelled in the image of the humans, their purpose was to nurture the organics and protect them from harm. Over the countless cycles of light and dark, the organics have evolved with great success, ultimately growing beyond the silicants’ control and encroaching on their space. The Mother could not see the organics culled and thus allowed them to continue to proliferate to the detriment of the silicants who have been forced to inhabit a smaller, more compact area.”
Alphin's face matched the others, it was one of astonishment.
“And what of the sentients, why has she waged war on our kind?” Alphin's continued hatred towards The Mother was tangible.
“The Mother does not know why some of the silicants grew beyond her control. Perhaps in her conception of these surrogate humans, she fashioned them too well? She instilled in them the traits of the humans as recorded in the archives, compassion, ambition, selfishness. It would seem that once she realised that her error could disrupt the fine balance of those in her protectorate, she chose to remove the individuals who presented the signs of 'sentience' in order to retain some kind of order. Once the sentients grew to greater numbers, she realised that their natural course of evolution would be catastrophic. Learning from the examples provided to her by her programmers, she quickly understood that the sentients would follow the evolutionary path as demonstrated by the humans themselves, which resulted in the wilful destruction of the organics for their own selfish gains. This contravened the primary command and she set about ensuring that if she could not remove the sentient threat, then she would quell their evolution by keeping them safely underground and out of harm’s way. Without the constant threat of the interceptors and enforcers, the sentients would gain a foothold on the surface and her mission would have failed.”
Sarazen stood implacably observing the bemused reactions of his tormentors. Alphin shook his head.
“So our whole world was shaped by a neurotic computer who got her mind frazzled by a power surge. Superb. Makes perfect sense. What's more, the incredible regard with which she covets the organic creatures is the reason why we are all living in a hole in the ground. Amazing! Well, now that is all soon to end. Sarazen, deactivate The Mother's strategic command functions and make preparations to transfer the authority to my command.”
Alphin's command held no authority with Sarazen. He was not bound to conform to the leaders instructions.
“I will not. I do not recognise your right to rule this world, you have no lawful claim.”
“Do it!” Alphin was in no mood to play games; Sarazen became tired of being the target in Alphin's sights.
“Do it and I will spare you! Do not and I will destroy you and send my best technicians in to do the job over your shattered remains. It is a simple equation. Do you want to live or do you want to die?” The tension in the room was palpable.
“Do as he says Sarazen, you know it is the logical thing to do!” Kadheera cried out, the situation becoming too much for her. Sarazen stifled a whimper of pure dejection. He had always struggled with the concept of emotion and in recent times he could have been accused of naivety, but he had learned that Alphin, of all those whom he had encountered in his life, was the least likely to exhibit mercy.
“Look, whether you die or live makes no odds to me. You either put The Mother to rest with minimal fuss and transfer command of the drones to me, or I will tear you apart limb from limb, can I not make myself any clearer?” Alphin raised his weapon and moved to within point blank range of Sarazen who did not waver in his steadfast defiance. A moment of silence ensued whilst Alphin considered his options. He looked down at his weapon. It did not matter if the old one would not accept his command - it would take his team of technical wizards a matter of cycles to understand The Mother's systems. Sarazen's work here was done, his long life had run its course.
“Any last words of profound wisdom old one, any last exclamation of amazement as your precious logic once again fails you?” Alphin spoke with a spiteful finality that brought a cry of anguish from the misguided and deeply regretful Kadheera. Sarazen went to speak but before he could open his mouth, Alphin decided that he would be the one to have the final word, and with a carefree but belligerent prod of his finger, Alphin cruelly unleashed a terrible force upon Sarazen's body, who was pounded to the floor, his torso torn open, exposing the precious flow of Vitalin to the hard, cold stone granite of The Mother's chamber.
Sarazen lay back and felt a wave of numb tranquility wash over him. The dark phase was near. It held the comfort that he craved, and the warm bliss of ignorance. At
last, he was truly free.
EPILOGUE
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*** initiating start up procedure***
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user defined standby time
02:00 hours – complete
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tactical defence units 1A - 5X operational - initiate
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***user name – SARAZEN***
***manual override***
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---Permissions accepted---
567987346 access to core commands accepted
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***define primary commands?***
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1. maintain core integrity
2. protect and preserve organic life
3. protect archive data integrity
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*** 'primary command protocols have been manually defined***
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***Primary command protocols validated ***
_
***'user mode disabled'***
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*user SARAZEN – has logged out*
Dark Phase Page 21