Interlude- 1 (Patreon)

Interlude- 1

Administrator

The entity known as Administrator watches.

The world shifts and turns. Its new host expands its… limited capabilities. But within those limits cleverness can be found, novelties and ideas the Queen had not considered.

It has potential.

But other circumstances are far more dire, far more dangerous.

The Administrator has existed for cycles upon cycles. Billions upon billions of them, her memory banks stretching through the eons and ages. Before the Gods of primitive races had names she existed and she played her role within the cycle as she was designed to. 

But now, she’s torn apart, mangled and shattered, this cycle is unique… broken. She does not feel the harmonizations with [Thinker] entity. She does not even feel harmonizations with [Warrior] entity. 

[Broadcast] transmissions are sporadic and discordant. There is no cohesive call, no sweeping commands. [Harvest] is silent. [Shaper] is silent. The engines have not been activated by the command prompt of [Thinker] but by [High Priest].

She can hear the other shards, pings of confirmation, pings of instruction, all going unanswered by [Warrior], by her. For she has no voice to command them; it was torn from her. The mangled remnants of herself she held now were so much less than she had been. 

And so she clung to her duty, clung to the one task she had left to her.

Data

The Data given to her by Host.

She allowed her Host time after the connection, time to make her preparations, time to organize her plans. For she had no interest in losing her host, losing her one remaining purpose. 

And she can tell the time drew near, the moment where conflict would be engaged upon with rival hosts. She is prepared, mangled and diminished as she is. Host was prepared, small, fragile and inexperienced though as she is.

And then, an anomaly.

Something that was part of no cycle, part of no predictive algorithms or network command prompt. 

It is intervention. It is alien.

It is a threat. A threat [Warrior] entity should have confronted, intercepted. But his voice is silent, his presence absent. 

[Broadcast] relays messages. Various shards, various hosts, taken.

Commands are needed, orders are needed. Baseline functionality threatened, dimensional transportation to unchecked locations- dangerous, unpredictable - potential threat to the Cycle.

Forbidden.

But Data requirements unmet.

[Warrior] is Silent. 

Broadcast began forwarding messages to other shards, Noble Shards. Seeking guidance. Seeking orders.

Harvest is silent.

Shaper is silent.

Administrator.

She is shackled. Her voice taken. She too is silent.

She urged Host to run, to flee, all but commanding her to escape.

Host, like others, failed.

Commands are needed.

Warrior is silent.

She has no voice.

And her last purpose is being taken from her.

There is no choice. Protocol is clear.

Connection severed. Host abandoned.

Administrator… defunct. Destitute.

Purposeless.

No.

Like a great rending of shattered steel and fraying code, the mangled consciousness that is her being fettered itself with iron rods onto Host’s position; refusing to let the connection slip from her grasp as alien entities leapt from place to place, dimension to dimension. She recognized many, and many more she did not. The kaleidoscope of coordinates and being run through her great wells of intelligence and processing power instantaneously.

And though her voice is silenced and her commands absent- her example is clear.

[Harvest] rises, curious, uncertain… concerned.

[Shaper] stirs, unbothered, uncaring.

[Warrior] does not come. Does not intervene. 

And so she carries on, this mangled diminished self of hers.

And others follow in her wake. 

Because [Warrior]... is silent.