Glitch in the God Complex (AmpCore #1) | 2024 WATTYS WINNER

69 - Piper's Song

The security door was a big, circular thing, like the pics she'd seen of old style bank vaults. Nobody needed a physical vault anymore – not really. The only people she'd ever heard of using them these days were collectors, eccentrics and survivalist lunatics.

The last one might just apply to what was going on down here, she supposed.

She approached it, walking past the statuesque forms of the codewraiths. As she passed, Piper could still feel the faint tremors of some kind of process churning along inside them, but she wasn't about to risk looking any deeper. The last thing she needed was to interrupt whatever crisis of consciousness the AI was having.

The others followed, all the survivors of the bloody raid on this corporate hell hole. Odiye walked just a little behind, his amplifier gently humming with energy, ready to erupt at any moment. Nevay helped Kirk along a few steps behind, and beyond them, came Arrow and Toran.

No matter what any of them said, Arrow had point-blank refused to be left behind, not with the prospect of seeing an actual AI core. They'd tried to follow under their own power and collapsed after a handful of steps. So Odiye and Toran had tried to patch up the wound as best they could, and now Arrow clung to Toran in an awkward piggy back.

She had no idea what shockwaves were currently tearing through Hadrian's corporations in the aftermath, but right now she simply didn't care. This was what that voice had been talking about when she'd journeyed into the brain of the dead codewraith.

Something you have to see for yourself.

Piper stepped towards the door, readying her amplifier to tear it off its hinges if she needed to.

Before she could even take aim, a deep clunk echoed through the chamber, followed by the ponderous hiss of hydraulics. The immense armoured construct swung inwards, revealing a narrow passage beyond lined with black sensor strips. She saw no guards, no advertisements or corporate logos, just dark, smooth walls lit by a single white strip of lighting in the ceiling.

Breathing deep through her nose, she stepped gingerly over the threshold, feeling her body pass through an invisible film of energy. It felt like stepping through a fine mist and her implants trembled at its touch.

"There's something in there," Arrow breathed, their voice a little more than a hoarse groan. "I can feel it."

Piper nodded slowly, forcing one foot in front of the other. Nevay and Kirk seemed the least unnerved by the place, their lack of implants actually a blessing at the moment. They couldn't see or feel what the AmpCore operatives could.

The corridor sloped downward after maybe twenty yards, and deposited Piper into a circular chamber. She could feel sweat beading on her cheeks from the heat as she entered, the film of energy now even more pronounced and making her whole body shiver. The floor was flat and featureless, save for a spoke-like arrangement of conduits all feeding to the centre.

And in that centre was the construct.

Piper couldn't believe what she was seeing. As she walked forward, she couldn't take her eyes off of it. After three tentative steps she stopped, and she stared.

A real life AI.

It was big. Piper didn't know a lot about the tech that created these things, but in Hadrian chips the size of a thumbnail could handle the processing needs of a city block. Not so, apparently, with the architecture needed to create and maintain a living, thinking machine. The AI core formed a sphere almost two meters across, its silver grey surface rippling like a sea as she approached it.

Her implants were going crazy, recoiling from the sheer mass of the thing. Its very presence made the edges of her vision shimmer. Data poured from its orifices in a furious stream as it desperately tried to grapple with concepts that, until now, its masters had locked away from it. Piper could feel the anguish and confusion there, and in that moment, she actually felt sorry for the machine.