Mod Superhero (Book 6 STUBBING on Oct 27th)

Chapter 6.29 - Deviations

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INTERCEPTED COMMUNICATION BETWEEN MIDAS AND AVA SAVANUS

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"Ava, we need to discuss the latest raids. Take a break from your tinkering."

Metal clinked as Ava set aside her operating tools. "I take it you finally looked over the data I sent you?"

"The ambushes had mixed results. Some successes... but a frustrating number of failures."

Ava scoffed. "Did you expect to root out an entire rebellion in an afternoon? Our capture rate was in line with predictions."

"The Resistance is growing, Ava."

"Which is where our countermeasures come in."

Midas snorted. "You seem preoccupied."

"I'm in the middle of work."

"That's... one of your skin-wrapped machines."

"Yes. One of the infiltration units that you scoffed at—that wound up being instrumental in those ambushes. These raids were proof of concept. I'm expanding their distribution."

"Four minor players, Ava. Hardly worth celebrating. If it was their leadership... We don't need pawns. We need the brain behind their little rebellion."

"You got results, Midas. Four Resistance members captured, their cloaking tech exposed."

"Oh, is that how we're measuring success now? By scraps? A few low-tier masks with delusions of grandeur. I expected something more substantial. We couldn't even recover their cloaking tech."

Ava made a non-committal sound. "Self-dismantling tech. It's advanced. Designed to erase evidence of their capabilities. And it's working. The samples we've recovered are minimal—barely enough to study."

"You sound impressed."

"It's because I am impressed. But we should've expected something like this from Venture's protégés."

Midas sighed. "I honestly thought that his toy soldier was the brains behind the organization. Maybe it was his daughter all along."

Ava hesitated. "We need to consider the chance that they have a proto-AI or salvaged pieces of the original."

"We've been over this—"

"We need to consider it."

Midas scoffed. "There is no chance the AI survived."

Silence stretched on.

"What aren't you telling me, Ava?"

"Emmett's implant is much more complicated than we thought. Its architecture is... Calling it dense doesn't do it justice."

"I thought you said it was empty, and I quote 'nothing to be concerned about'?"

Bastion interjected, "The architecture of Emmett Laraway's brain implant is highly advanced. All of its programming and data has been erased, but it was clearly designed for specialized and powerful processing. Simulations suggest that a proto-AI could survive in such a device."

Midas grit his teeth. "AI, could that device be replicated with limited manufacturing capabilities?"

"Unlikely. The implant—"

"Could a proto-AI survive on a server cluster without complex architecture?"

"Unlikely. The implant—"