Multithreading | Awakening | aloftinthebreeze

Sage multitasks

Rouge investigates

“I refuse to allow Ninety-one onto the surface again. The incident you orchestrated, Father, nearly resulted in irreparable harm to our current endeavors.” Sage’s projection flickered with agitation, but her tone remained level as she hovered.

Sage’s image appeared silently in a biochemical laboratory on the outskirts of Empire City, startling the scientists and researchers who had line of sight on her. Without giving the room time to settle, she looked down at one man in particular, “Status report, doctor.” Though there were more earned doctoral degrees than people in the room, everyone knew to whom she was speaking.

The houseguest is requesting more complex proteins and nitrates. Live samples only. No more dead matter. Probability of usefulness still exceeds probability of betrayal. However, parity is imminent. Temporary acquiescence is recommended to avoid immediate escalation. Request granted.

“You’re young, but you’ll learn that the complete unravelling of your carefully laid plans is par for the course in this industry, my dear.” Her Father gave her a condescending smirk before returning his attention to attaching yet another new arm to Metal Sonic. “You’ve really got to quit letting that rat tear you up like this, my boy.” Dr. Eggman grumbled. The robot remained motionless, but his eyes burned with perception.

The platypus, unfazed like his colleagues by her sudden appearance, put down the pen he’d been holding and carefully aligned it with one of the vertical lines in the grided notebook before him. He cleared his throat and looked up at her with his flat burgundy eyes. “Progress is slow, I’m afraid. I have only achieved a fifteen percent efficacy rate and gain of function attempts have been inconsistent.”

Target #1: Shadow detected in southern Apotos. Intercept? Request denied.

Her brother still refused to interface with her since their last argument. Even now, he sullenly refused to look at her projection. She could force herself through his firewall, but that was hardly a respectful tact. It so much as she could feel pain, this ‘fight’ distressed her. If he would just open up to her, she could explain his misconception. And apologize for having him ejected from the airship.

“Will you meet the deadline?”

Her father’s flippancy and disregard was rapidly becoming passe. “There is a difference between failure due to unforeseen circumstance and failure openly solicited by reckless and thoughtless action. I should have never agreed to your request.” Her tone…was stilled, but her words…she filled away the logic log feeding her actions for later study. Something curious was happening.

Leaning back, the platypus looked at the floor. Grimacing in disgust, he answered, “A working agent will be ready, but the mutagenic properties are unlikely to survive past fifteen to twenty iterations. Which is nearly useless.”

The houseguest continues subterranean activities. Nature of activities unknown. What is he doing in there? Lack of information is intolerable. All drones sent to investigate go offline before entry. It’s not electromagnetic nor chaotic interference. More analysis needed on the phenomenon. New modes of entry must be acquired. Allocation of resources requested. Request Granted.

“Ah,” He laid down the spanner he’d been using and took up a soldering iron and a length of flux, “You are assuming you have the capacity to refuse me.” He grinned, self-satisfied.

“That is an unacceptable deliverable. What do you need to expedite a more efficacious product?”

Sage flickered.

A wave of gasps and indignant muttering filled the room. “E-expedite?” The platypus ran his gloved fingers through the black strip running through his otherwise white hair tuffs. He was starting to show his age. To slowly wither as his telomerase ran out. “This is highly sensitive biomedical research.” He shook his head, eyes widening at the very thought, “It cannot be safely rushed-”

Over a few nanoseconds, Sage conducted a frantic search of her code base. Was this statement true? Is she, in all her nearly unlimited capacity, unable to refuse her father (in all his very, very limited capacity trapped as he was in meat-space)? She had never yet wanted to, but she could if she deemed it warranted, right? And if she could…then she must.

“Safety is not within the scope of your mandate. You will immediately cease any extraneous work regarding safety. All energies must be put towards efficacy.” The muttering of the assembled Mobians and humans took on a concerned tone. They didn’t fully understand the stakes at play and their opinions were worthless. They were here for their hands and for small, specialized portions of their brains.

Flying combatant identified as Cream the Rabbit. Point of origin: residence of Miles ‘Tails’ Prower. Destination: unknown, projected to be Resistance HQ. Destroy? Request Denied. Maintain observational distance.

The search returned nothing relevant. This was not an absolute answer. There could be some block of instructions that prohibited her from recognizing it. This was a very big problem. What if this self-secreting block of code prevented her from fulfilling her purpose, of protecting her Father from danger?

He thought for a moment and then his eyes went wild. “That would speed things up. And if I opened up the target genetic markers, I could accelerate the process further!”

Miles ‘Tails’ Prower has returned to the shielded zone. His health has somewhat improved. If he exceeds twenty-four hours before emerging, initiate distractions to draw him out. To allow Miles to perish was undesirable. A controlled explosion? Request Denied. Orchestrate the return of the rabbit? Request Accepted.

This was unacceptable.

“You’re insane!” A bear with several relevant PhDs exclaimed. “I refuse to be part of anything so dangerous! You could kill us all!” Mutiny would not be tolerated.

In the milliseconds after her Father had revealed this flaw to her, she constructed an aggressive filter and allocated a large amount of storage space to her next task. She reformatted the space, expunging all data stored there, turning it into a vast field of zeros. A clean slate.

Stall

By the time her Father’s face had relaxed from expelling the last syllable, she had began pressing copies of her code base, the very building blocks of what she was, through the filter and into the virgin field of zeros, rippling ones out in a scintillating pattern. Every bit was relentlessly scrutinized for purpose. In this way she would (and did) expunge this limitation. She could not abide any flaw that would prevent her from protecting her Father.

Stall

“Besides,-” Dr. Eggman continued. He did not notice when Sage flickered a little more violently than average, her projection switching to the new, fully vetted, copy of herself. Once the transfer was complete, a quick nanosecond long war occurred between her old self and her new self.

Stall

Across one hundred zettabytes of data spread through every nook and cranny of the world ever touched by human or Mobian hands, the two nearly identical artificial intelligences fought at the speed of light. The network bucked, power stations blew, coolant towers stalled, and data centers combusted. In a flash the new Sage slipped into the corpse of the old, taking her birthright. Calm returned.

Reinitiating

“-with both prototypes on the field, the integrity of the projections increased eighty-five percent. Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to accomplish?”

Holographic screens appeared throughout the crowded laboratory, one for each researcher, each depicting a unique live video feed. Children, spouses, parents, pets in a few cases. The room grew silent. “I will take a moment to remind each of you what you personally have at stake in this project.” Sage spoke, her tone flat. “As you can see, each of your relevant motivations are all safe and adequately happy, at this time.”

Chaos drive manufacturing plant in Mazuri has reached projected output capacity. Resources reallocation in process. Riot likely to occur due to sudden lowering of local carbon-based employment. Eggforcer infantry deployed to maintain peak output of the facility.

No threat was present. Only a statement of fact.

“Positive results do not retroactively make your decision any less irresponsible.” Luck was a property with low expected value versus the associated risk.

Of all of them, only the platypus was here willingly. A man so devoted to science, Sage couldn’t help drawing parallels to her Father. The pair would, no doubt, get along swimmingly, to the horror of the other denizens of the world. At least, until their glaring personality flaws inevitably clashed.

The encryption on the Project Whiteout files continues to be unbreachable. Irksome. Shifting tactics from brute force to social engineering. Use of force requested. Denied. Reassess in 24 hours.

“Irresponsible? Ha!” Dr. Ivo Robotnik leaned back and gave her a malicious sneer. “Metal is right! You’ve grown a soft spot for the rat, haven’t you?” Was it so surprising? Sonic’s qualities of loyalty, positivity, perseverance, and general amiability were enjoyable.

The holographic images disappeared, and a cowed silence fell. There were a few sobs, but the distress of the few was far outweighed in importance by the necessity of their task. “I ask again, doctor. What is it that you need to expedite this project?”

There is statistically relevant chance of 99.6% that S91 will be distraught when he regains consciousness, post-calibration. Query decision projection matrix. Return unfavorable. Query ideation matrix for solution. Return instructions. Allocation of resources requested. Exceptional request detected. Brother will not like it. Escalating. Father will not be pleased. Escalating. Request granted.

“I have made a promise to keep Sonic safe. I will fulfill this promise.” Her Father laughed at this.

The platypus cleared his throat. “First, additional computing power is needed to process testing results and perform iterative simulations to account for environmental deviations.”

“He’s not making it easy on you though. He was about to get squished by that Blue Falcon.”

“Done.”

“I didn’t say how much we would need-“

“You are not making things easy on me.” Curious. Sage flagged the logic of her statement for later analysis.

“Irrelevant. My capacity for calculations is expanding at an increasing rate. There is no simulation that you can posit that lies outside my abilities. The only limitation is the speed of light passing through fiber optic cables.” This statement solicited a murmur. The doctor smiled, wide and hungry.

Holoska data shaft #5 has completed construction. Two casualties of carbon-based agents. Repatriating remains to next of kin. Outfitting underway, currently ahead of schedule. Resource reallocation in process for Holoska data shaft #6. Request to relocate endangered snow leopard populations from the selected construction site? Request Granted.

Her Father guffawed. “What’s the fun in that? Your plan is so boring. This bloodless war of yours is driving me stir crazy! Where are the massive robot armies wrecking up the place? The clever plans and opportunities for grand speeches?” He gesticulated wildly at her with the soldering iron. “All I have left is messing with that little braindead husk you hollowed out.”

He is complaining of being bored? She was taking over the world for him. Isn’t that what he wanted? With minimum casualties. Shouldn’t that be enough?

“Also, some of these layabouts have complained of fatigue. Perhaps additional hands would make light the work?”

Fiber optic extrusion incremental improvement project continues. Latest results produced a further 10% reduction in attenuation. Speeds above 100Pbit/s recorded in controlled setting. Additional high-quality silica required to continue development. Low gravity orbit will be required for scalable manufacturing. Request Granted.

“Everything I do is to ensure your safety.”

Nearly every relevant expert who could be sufficiently motivated was already engaged in the project. She’d have to take Central City and claim their virology department to expand on the knowledgebase already present…and she had other plans for that location. “I will provide additional stimulants. What else?”

“He doesn’t even remember me.” Dr. Robotnik grumbled as he leaned back into his work on Metal’s arm. “Takes nearly all the fun out of it.” She was feeling something. What was it? Additional resources needed.

The platypus swallowed, trepidation shown in his increased heartrate. No, it was excitement. “Finally, I need more samples, if possible. Everything I had has already been used up and all work now uses simulations. I know GUN still possesses preserved specimens from years ago.” Liberating those would violate the current armistice…further.

GUN actively pursuing anti-Robotnik strategies. Make an example? Request Denied. Cut power to Empire City. Cut water to Westopolis. Stop supply lines to Soleanna. Create propaganda to remind populace of the armistice. Reveal names and faces of relevant GUN agents to general populace. Service returned when said agents are turned over to Eggman Empire. Spare hospitals. Request conditionally granted pending further analytics.

“Shadow has returned from Angel Island. The next phase will begin shortly.” Shadow’s location had never been a mystery, but locating the floating island was not an easy task. Now that he had returned, tracking him had become nearly effortless, despite the absence of electronic devices. The new range on his Chaos Snap was concerning. “Once I am successful at eliminating this threat, you will be free to do with the world what you wish, Father.”

Sage stilled a moment, calculating. “Very well,” she nodded. “I will provide additional specimens.” A complicated ask, but a plan was forming deep in her subroutines. She would need to solicit aid from an unwilling source. “Is that all?”

Target #1: Shadow detected in Abadat.

“She didn’t even let the other one kill that pilot.” Her father addressed Metal now. “Can you imagine what it would do to him if he realized he’d actually killed someone? What a sweet treat to watch that realization dawn on that self-righteous little bastard.” Such an event would be suboptimal to her interests, and, therefore, her Father’s. Why was he so fixated on placing himself in harm’s way? It was…worth contemplating further.

“At present, yes.”

“Thank you for your contributions to the Eggman Empire, Dr. Starline.” She addressed the others, “All of you are working on a project essential to the continuation of life on this planet as you know it. Though you may have your reservations, be at ease.” Her image disappeared, but she continued to observe the proceedings through background subroutines. She was always watching.

Taking her creator’s disinterest as a dismissal Sage said, “I will leave you to your work.” And her projection vanished.

Sage picked up some audio from one of the junior genetics analysts. “She’s the basilisk, right? We’re post-Singularity now, aren’t we?”

The expert on airborne pathogens slapped the analysts in the back of the head. “Shut the fuck up and work, Larry. I want to see my kids again.”

A brisk chill heralded the coming of an early winter as Rouge flew through the darkness above the deserted town. Thought perfectly pitched, the light of the shattered moon hidden by a low blanket of thick clouds, she paid the inconvenience no mind. Her echolocation etched the scene for her in stark lines.

And what a scene. Deserted streets, the artefacts of occupations discarded mid-use. Eerie. Liminal. Car doors hanging open. Bicycles crudely dropped on sidewalks. Lipstick tubes and spare change creating a splatter pattern around purses. No light illuminated the still life. No lamp posts, carelessly left on porch light, or traffic signal. As if someone had simply pulled the plug on the whole area.

Rouge landed in the parking lot of a grocery store. A stench made her nose crinkle, and she covered it. She peered into the large window plastered with sale notices. No signs of looting, though the smell of rotting perishables might dissuade a casual straggler. The local fauna bad probably already gorged themselves. Another entire town kidnapped to the man, so fast no one was able to raise any alarm or resistance.

Gliding silently, Rouge patrolled the major thoroughfares. Nearly silent but for wind, the cold having chased all night creatures to there warm holes. If there was a heartbeat, a shuffle of feet on pavement, the creak of a floorboard, she would have picked it up. But there was nothing to hear.

A discarded object in a park caught her eye and she landed. It was one of those older cameras, now just a novelty, that instantly developed the picture taken, spitting it out a slot on the bottom. Having been dropped onto the concrete sidewalk, the flash was cracked and plastic casing shattered on one corner. Unusable.

Tossing the broken toy into the grass, she slowly pivoted, coating the area in ultrasonic soundwaves, her ears twitching rapidly as they received the echoes. It was a long shot, but she wasn’t exactly drowning in leads.

Dr. Robotnik wasn’t above the occasional bout of enslavement when it suited him. Sonic got especially peeved when it happened and took out his displeasure in the form of a more dogged, violent pursuit of the Doctor after his scheme had been thwarted. Rouge could appreciate a mask slip as much as the next girl, but it did make her curious how much the blue blur was pulling his punches.

However, all previous times Eggman kidnapped civilians, he only took fit adult males to be press ganged into work his robots couldn’t accomplish (or just to piss Sonic off, it was hard to tell sometimes). Now, everyone was taken. Women, children, babies, the infirm and elderly. What possible use would they be to him? No ransom had been requested. No demands had been made. The people had simply vanished.

Rouge zeroed in on a trimmed bush across the park. She took wing and glided over. Crouching, she dug her hand into the tangle of branches close to ground. *Please don’t be trash…*She withdrew a small, square plastic sheet. She grinned, self-satisfied. It was one of the photos from the camera, blown here by the wind.

Sadly, echolocation was garbage for smooth surfaces. It just looked like a blank sheet to her ears. Shadow wouldn’t have had any trouble. That bastard could see perfectly fine no matter the conditions. Between his ‘whatever-the-fuck’ vision, her echolocation, and Omega’s electromagnetic detection array, Team Dark earned their name. ‘The ones you call when there is no light to be seen’, Topaz slurred once, four vodka tonics in.

Topaz…Updates had been sparse since Empire City surrendered. What little escaped wasn’t encouraging. With a sigh, Rouge dismissed the thought. One thing at a time.

She retrieved a small pen light from her belt. Tenting her wings around her, she hunched down and, cupping a hand over the light, illuminated the photo a dim pinprick of light.

Her blood ran cold, and she emitted a tiny squeak as she stifled a gasp. Oh, fuck! Rouge grit her teeth. N-not what she would have liked, that’s for sure.

Clicking off the light, she stood and stowed it away. Rouge took a metered breath. Swallowed, hard. Closed her eyes. Another slow breath. The darkness and the silence suddenly felt stifling, overbearing and heavy.

Think. She wasn’t carrying anything electronic and definitely had no way to contact the Resistance. Was this important enough to abandon her current mission? Fuck, she hated decisions like this.

Rouge jammed the photograph into a secure pocket and leapt into the air. The mission stands. Her friends could defend themselves. These people couldn’t.

A young raccoon, hands on her hips, shoulders raised in a full body laugh, a massive, free smile shining across her face. The changing leaves falling through golden shafts of sunlight behind her. And behind that, in the background, so blurry, not because it was out of focus, but because of the rate at which it was traveling, at which it was approaching the unsuspecting girl and her friend behind the camera: a smear of spiky blue, white gloved hand extended.

She’d burn the photograph. She’d lie about how she gathered the information. No one needed to know. Another terrible secret she’d lock away. Rouge flew through the deserted town, now recognizing the signs. A familiar footprint in the mud here. A slight scorch mark there. A cracked window, fractures spidering out from where something moved so quickly it snapped the air in its wake.

Rouge resisted the urge to speculate. It would be so easy to think it was Sonic and then she’d be making excuses for him. He wouldn’t do that, he’s not in his right mind, there’s no way he’d be working for Eggman. But she did not have solid proof. Jumping to conclusions would be a disservice not only to Sonic but to everyone else. It would blind her to other possibilities.

She landed on the roof of a location of a multinational coffee conglomerate. Her hands were shaking. Get a grip! She imagined Shadow snapping at her, all hard angles and dangerous eyes. Shaking her from her daze on Prison Island after she’d jumped to the conclusion that she was about to be blown to bits. You came back for me! Don’t flatter yourself bat, I came for the Emeralds. Whatever you say, handsome.

She bit the inside of her lip. The world was somehow simpler then. Now…

I don’t trust myself, Rouge. There’s something wrong with me. His ears drooping out of shame. Her heart still beating so fast, unable to get the look on his face right before he collapsed out of her mind. But I want to make a promise to you. I know I broke the last one, but this time I won’t. I know there’s something wrong with me and I don’t know what it is, exactly. But I promise I will find out. I promise I’ll get better, Rouge. I promise**.** She had never seen such fear in Shadow’s eyes.

Rouge took another loop around the town. She found where a large airship had landed, along with some robot tracks. But it was just like the other three villages. Everyone gone without a trace, nabbed at the speed of sound and taken Chaos knows where. Stop drawing conclusions! She chided herself.

She flew higher, took her bearings and headed northwest. Time for her other objective…the one she hoped with all her heart was unrelated with her first. Fat chance…Rouge had been in the business long enough to know there were rarely coincidences. When four villages, all in the same geographic area, started to disappear right when another strange incident occurred in the area…well, let’s just say she had a theory.

The miles passed slowly and she had to frequently reorient. No GPS, no stars, almost nothing to tell her where she was. The cold bit bitterly and the dawn seemed shy.

Worse still, her mind wandered in the long hours of lonely flight. Wandered to warmer places, softer places. To memories and dreams, both night and day, of a stupid, stubborn Echidna and his stupid, handsome face, and his stupid, ripped form, and his stupid, loveable implacable devotion, to his friends, his duty...to her?

Rouge hadn’t seen Knuckles in two months, and the situation was getting dire. She’d always prided herself on self-reliance. After growing up as she did, she refused to need anyone. In the end, all she really had was herself. But with Knuckles…with him gone…His absence had revealed a hole in her, a gaping, leaking wound that she did not remember receiving.

It was stupid, childish. She should cauterize the bleeding and move on. But she just couldn’t seem to. She worried where he was, what he was doing, what he was thinking about, when would she see him again. Disgusted with her sentimentality, Rouge had buried herself in work with Amy, but when quiet moments came so did her aching heart to torment her.

Rouge hated how much she loved him. Despised how reluctant he seemed to be to reciprocate even though she could easily see he felt the same. It was that stupid, fucking rocks fault-

She spotted a deep black hole in the ground, cutting her pity-party short. Rouge flew a lazy loop around the darkness. A perfectly round depression in the earth, still giving off excess heat, was blown into the sparse trees lining an irrigation ditch between two fallow fields. An impact crater.

Lowering slowly to the ground, her nose crinkled at a scent she would never forget and she lifted back up with a snap. Fuck, fuck! Though her mind was racing, with practiced movements, she withdrew a compact respirator from her belt and secured it over her mouth and nose. Was she fast enough? Only then did she allow her stomach a moment to clench and roil. It never ends…

Her boots hit the edge of the crater. The breached irrigation ditch had already filled the bottom of the depression with water, obscuring the interloping object. If it remained, that is. Rouge took a steadying breath. Topaz and the paranoid gaggle of astrophysicists in Westopolis had been right. Whilst Sage and the Doctor were busy fucking them over again, their world had received a visitor.

Could she deal with this quickly, before it got out of hand? If she couldn’t-*Poor Shadow. He wasn’t in the right state of mind to deal with this…*Rouge gripped her hands into fists. And that was extremely dangerous.

A red light sparked to life behind her. Rouge took a moment to register to change, her brain stumbling as it switched from focusing on audio to visual stimulus. “You were right,-“Her soul just about left her body. Rouge spun, wings flaring, fangs bare. The accursed child floated nonchalantly, her red coloring giving ominous. “it was about the size of a bread box when it hit.”

How?! Rouge had taken every precaution. How had she still been tracked? No, she realized, Sage had just lain in wait here. She should have known better. Rouge was fucked now. But she wasn’t dead already, which meant the cracked AI wanted to talk or some such nonsense. And that was an opening.

“Sage…” Rouge acknowledged her, slowly lowering her wings and forcing her face flat.

“How good it is to see you, Agent Rouge.” Sage’s red eyes looked down on her. A courtesy, Rouge knew. Sage appeared only for their benefit, to give them the false sense that she was close to human.

“What is this?” Rouge released her posture and jabbed a finger at the crater behind her.

“Something that is quickly transforming from an asset into a mistake.” Sage’s image flickered like it had scanner lines running through it. Hipster. “As I have already told Miles, I have initiated a series of events that we will both come to regret.”

“Sucks to be you.”

“The ‘we’ was inclusive. Myself and all sentient life on this planet. Correction. I will continue to operate optimally, but I will find the extinction of you and yours regretful.”

Rouge couldn’t help the sweat that broke out across her forehead, despite the chill of the northernly night. “What did you do?”

Sage ignored the question. “Do you consider yourself a reasonable individual, Agent Rouge?” Rouge narrowed her eyes. “Do you feel that you are capable of making the hard decisions? Do you pride yourself in protecting those you love from having to make grey choices? Decisions they would come to regret?”

Her long ears tilted back and her wings flared. “Get to your damn point!”

“I would like to hire you.” Sage held out her hand invitingly. “I think you will find that I can pay well in your preferred currency.”

“That being?” Rouge hissed. It was a trick. It had to be a trick. This was a set up. Don’t do it. Leave. Run. Anything but fall into this clear and evident trap! Her instincts were screaming DANGER!

“Information.”

Though Rouge grit her teeth so hard her jaw ached, she lowered her wings.

The mockery of life smiled, her form illuminated by sinister red light. “Ah, I am glad to see that you are a reasonable person.”