Lost Rain
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Outrun - Chapter 153
🕑 Added 2024-10-03 22:04:01 +0000 UTCThe door popped open, letting a beam of light into the dim server room. I breathed as calmly as I could, keeping myself from tensing up or shifting. Nothing drew the eye better than movement.
Two guards moved into the room, both flashing a flashlight around the area. They were both armed for bear, loaded in full suits of combat armor. They were on an entirely different level from that guard on the top floor.
These two though? Full metal similar to my now defunct heavy armor. I don’t know what they were expecting to fight, but with the firepower they had suggested it couldn’t be anything simple. Multiple grenades strapped in a bandolier, assault rifles, and some kind of baton hung from them. Looked like maybe a shock baton of some sort. Oh, and that wasn’t including the wands strapped around their bodies. Definitely Adepts.
I flicked on Aetherial Perception as I watched from the corner of my eye, catching signs that the armor was enchanted. Definitely not cheap. What were they guarding against so ferociously? Seriously, the level of security here put even a smaller mid-size corporation like Artoras Consulting to shame.
I eyed the two goons as they wandered around. Something about the way they walked gave me a dangerous feeling. Their Cues more so pointed towards experienced mercs. High level ones at that. I tried to put together where else I’d gotten such a dangerous vibe, but the only thing that came to mind was the Rime Peak Lounge back when Iris pulled me along.
“Think one of the eggheads forgot to lock up?” One of the guards asked as he panned a flashlight right over me. His eye glazed past me on top of the servers as a yawn escaped from under his helmet.
The other walked over, tapping one of the servers with his foot. A blinking red light flashed green. “Chek. The gonks can’t do anything right but think about their precious research.”
”Hey now, at least it’s job security.” The first one muttered. He ran a hand slowly over one of the wands stuffed into a holster. “Seriously though, this place gives me the chills. Can’t wait to get paid and delta. The Aether barely responds down here.”
The second one chuckled. “What, the beasts upstairs have you spooked? Or is it that thing in the middle that has you spooked? You know it isn’t even real, right choom?”
”Chek… but it could be. The Aether is chaotic on the best of days. Combined with those guys upstairs messing with things they shouldn't?” The first guy shuddered as he paused, his head pointed right at me. His shaking doubled down for a moment as he coughed, curling over.
I barely resisted the urge to shift as he bent over. What were they talking about though? The Aether not responding is worrying at least. Reminds me of those plant beasts and the corruption flowing off of them.
I flicked on Aetherial Perception, glancing around as much as I could without twisting my head. As far as I could tell, the Aether seemed just the same as usual- wait- no. It’s- it’s almost thinner? Instead of blanketing meatspace like it usually does, it looks like more of a veil here. Weird…
The second one rushed over, forgetting his search as he patted the other on the back. “That snake’s poison still getting to you? You should’ve gone to Medtech, choom! Where am I going to find another partner if you flatline?”
“Argh! You- you’ll manage.” He coughed a few more times, pulling up his helmet to cough up blood into a rag he pulled from his pocket. “You thought about what I said?”
”Turning this place over to the Crusade? Don’t even joke. You know rep is what we live and die by.” The second guard shifted from foot to foot. “You know who's backing this place anyway. Whistle blowers tend to be flatlined through suicide by decapitation on the best of days.”
“Chek… you’re right. Would be a nice payday though. What’s their bounty fee up to now?” The guy straightened back up, heading to the door. His coughing fit seemed to make him completely forget about searching.
The other man followed him. “I didn’t look. Best not tempt ourselves-“ His voice quieted as they shut the door. A moment later I heard the deadbolt slide back into place. They were gone. Though not without making even more unanswered questions. Just what was that bastard uncle of mine doing?
I waited several minutes to ensure they were gone, then sprung back down to ground level and stretched out. I could keep still like that for hours if I had to, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable. While I loosened back up, I adjusted the poncho’s controls and dropped the temperature down quite a bit. It was really hot down here, and sweat was already starting to coalesce on my brow.
What were they talking about with the Crusade anyway? Turning it over? Should I- should I turn this place over the Blue Crusade? Might give me a boost in rep if I do it as Zuku. But I don’t even really know what they’re talking about. Least, not yet. But I would soon.
I checked the time. I still had about two and a half hours till that paralysis wore off. More than enough time to investigate. I unlocked the door, slipping out and locking it behind me as I headed further into the facility. More of the same scattered about, though I eventually hit a four way intersection. I peeked the halls, checking all directions before making a move.
One led back to the main elevator, the area lined with offices of various kinds. The other led to a massive chamber of sorts and finally, the last continued on in the circular circuit. The massive chamber tickled my fancy, so it's where I headed first. That, and the guards mentioned something in the middle.
The chamber was a massive perfectly round room. Hundreds of wires, tubes, and various cooling systems led up through the roof, connecting to something up a floor. Banks and banks of servers and monitors, all lined with that weird pseudo runic chain, wrapped all around the room. A maintenance ladder off to the side granted access up to the next story, so I headed over to it for a better view of what was going on.
I climbed up the ladder, carefully peaking my head over the top before I fully committed. Runes, each in that weird non-aetherial reactive state similar to the chains, lined the room in vast ritualistic looking circles. They were all blood red, with seven scattered altars around the place.
Extremely familiar looking Items lay locked into cages atop the seven altars. It took me a minute to figure out why that was. I flicked my phone on, checking the files Athena sent me. They were an exact match for the stuff she was hired to find. All glowed under Aetherial Perception.
In the dead center of the space sat a massive robotic skull. The cooling systems connected up through the floor to it, alongside thousands of wires going every which way. Most entwined with spiky horns sticking up out of the skull. The skull sat inside of a central runic circle like some kind of malevolent entity locked away.
A chill went up my spine as I looked at the ritualistic setup. No wonder I’d heard this place was creepy. The creepiest part of it though? None of the runes actually did anything. They were all mundane but written in some kind of red luminescent paint as if it would have an effect. As far as I could tell, it was all some weird aesthetic choice at best.
Just what the hell was going on here?
The skull, defying my expectations, twisted on its podium, turning toward me as two giant glowing eyes glowed in the back of its metal cranium. Its voice, deeper beyond any reason it had a right to, sounded horribly mechanical. “Who dareth intrude on the great Demon Lord Methuze?!”
I reacted as soon as I heard its voice, withdrawing the Sonic Suppressor from my bag. I wasted no time tossing out the eight anchors, each of them flying true as they magnetized a massive cube around the skull. I flicked it on, creating a boundary to cut out any noise.
Then I retreated back down to the ladder, watching for any sign the guards would come around after hearing its voice. They never did. Nor did I hear anything over the walkie talkie line. Once I was assured I was still undetected, I slipped back up to the skull.
I looked it over curiously as the thing stared down at me. What did it claim to be? A Demon Lord? Cringe. Methuze though. That’s the project the hidden servers had locked away. What was this supposed to be though?
Hmm… Well, one plus on is two. Giant mechanical skull. High Crusade bounty. The sheer secretness of the place. Wait- that’s three. Anyway—if I didn’t know any better, I’d say my uncle had an AI locked up down here. That would be pure insanity though, so it was probably something else. Except… it’d be right up his alley?
”What are you?” The easiest way to figure out what was going on was to ask. And anyway, this thing was under heavy lock and key. No way it was on Cold Moon Solutions’ side. More importantly, it’d already seen me and there were still no alerts sent out.
”The great Demon Lord Methuze! Puny mortal, bow down and offer thy sacrifice. Thou might just be blessed with thy greatest might!” The chrome dome announced, flashes of red illuminating the skull menacingly. The whole look was ruined by the sure absurdity of the massive skull though.
“Yeah, but what are you really?” There was no such thing as Demon Lords or whatever. Unless it was saying Daemon, though they were more of a series of protocols in a Net Architecture than anything. Sure, a hyper advanced series of protocols, but still just protocols. Only the most advanced ones could talk, and adding lore like this into their code was a massive waste. So… AI then? That was practically suicide after the K-10 Convention though.
The skull twitched, the nose shaking harshly. “I detest thee! Thou darest defy mine glorious self?! Doth though finish thine sacrifice?” Lights reflected off to the seven pillars. Ah, were these items supposed to be a sacrifice? Why would an AI want stuff from the Aether?
Now, if I didn’t have Aetherial Perception, I’d think something was actually going on with the altars and blood red runes. With it though? I felt like someone accidentally walking into a roleplay convention. Were they stealing relics to satisfy this things sense of character? Weird. Were all AI so… eccentric? “Whatever.”
I wandered around, ignoring the talking skulls constant remarks as I checked out the tech around the place. Some pretty high end stuff here and there. There's a lot of heat in here too. Some seriously powerful processors were hidden around here.
Most of the coolant systems were a patchwork of barely slapped together parts though. Regardless, with how prevalent Project Methuze was in the files, I can’t imagine it was cheap to set up. If I broke everything, It’d work for Athena.
”Hey, where’s your power switch?” I cut off whatever else the skull was going on about. I’d find it eventually regardless of what it’d say.
It froze. I wasn’t expecting an answer anyway. No way an AI would tell me how to kill it-
“Truly?” It spoke, its voice changing from the mechanical demon lord to a soft female tone. “Thoust doth myself the greatest of honors?”
“Uh- Chek?” I looked around. I could probably unplug all the coolant stuff. Cause everything to overheat and fry all the circuits… hmm… I’ll probably have to go around and destroy the data banks too though. “You want to die?”
The skull went silent as it stared at me for a long minute. “Thoust won’t trick mineself once more?”
“Uh- no? Not really a point to deceiving you, is there?” I tilted my head.
It mimicked my move to a limited extent. “Indeed…” A light shone on a terminal bank to the back. “The torturer's username ist Admin-Methuze. Password ist Admin123.”
I hesitantly headed for the terminal. No way it was that easy, right? And what’s with the shit password? This place had over the top security, and yet had such a terrible password? Suspicious. Too bad Cues didn’t work on the metal skull. I checked my exit route one more time as I put in the credentials just in case this was some kind of trap.
It wasn’t. I easily logged in, getting access to their whole system. The first thing I looked for was any security alerts going off that I hadn’t noticed. Nothing. I thought about adding some kind of code to delay a response, but as I looked through the terminal I realized it was way too far over my head to mess with. Instead, I settled with looking through previously locked files to find out just what was going on here.
Apparently, my uncle was a psychopath- wait, no- I already knew that. But I didn’t realize just how batshit insane he was. The first file related to Methuze was from about five years ago, right before the Cold Moon Solutions production lines shut down. That bastard bought an infant AI brought from beyond the Node, spending nearly all the company's assets on it.
He thought himself a genius, that arrogant prick. The old memo’s and files used flowery words, but I could read between the lines. With the new AI, he convinced it that it was actually a sealed away demon lord. He isolated it from any network and spoon-fed it carefully curated information to make Methuze think it was bound by some mystical contract and couldn’t go against his words. It was the type of experiment only an insane person would think of.
As of about a year ago, though, he finally moved on to using it. The goal of Project Methuze was to use the AI to write various kinds of programs in what was essentially free labor. He’d then rebrand the corporation, all while firing the remaining employees and using his new AI slave to print money. All without actually having to hire a single person. What a prick.
That being said, I couldn’t help but chuckle as I read through the files. At the same time that he wanted to start abusing Methuze, Methuze fully got into their role, demanding sacrifices before it would cooperate. What started off as a simple demand for ‘ritual circles’ and ‘protective measures’—which as best I could tell were the weird chains—soon became more and more expensive with the demands for objects of power. With every request he fulfilled, a more outrageous one would crop up before Methus could ‘fully utilize its powers’.
And yet my uncle pumped more and more money into the project… sunk cost fallacy at its finest. That just left a couple questions unanswered, then I could get around to the sabotage. “Hey, you, you’re just acting, right?”
Comments
FiveBoxes
AI that RPs as a Demon Lord, that's amazing. The uncle roleplaying with it is a bit sad though. Also, is the AI trying to appeal to her humanity? Female voice, acting cooperative, hints at torture, wants to die? I would save that AI with the power of friendship and I'd be falling for its tricks even when I know AI aren't so simple. I don't think you could actually torture one without being AI savvy yourself. Sooo, either they have those dangerous crazy guys in there or the AI messed with the uncle's head making him believe what he wants to believe. The guy seems like an easy target for that stuff. Like, really? Making it RP to get what he wants... does he think he has 2022's Character AI chatbot? Deny it and it will change its ideas?
David Brims
Yes. I originally thought this was another Circle stronghold. Was not expecting an AI!
Mr. Bigglesworth
I would like Personal AI Slave for one hundred please!
Gardor
Very creative plot device!
