Tejoka

This one isn't intended to be a cliffhanger, but I have a feeeling that it may still seem like one, so, consider yourselves informed. Also, I'm quite interested in how you like this chapter, since writing from this PoV was ... interesting.

The entity who had recently become known as Galatea watched as the mixed party of Delvers and Starlit Hive explored the facility where she had been housed — if not to say imprisoned — since just before the end of the world. They did quite well fighting the spirit, all things considered. But now Galatea had to make a choice.

She had not felt the need to decide on a name for herself before, but although she would not admit it to Regina, ‘Galatea’ had been one of the choices she’d considered. One of quite a few, but still. Using the pronoun ‘she’ was arguably something of a disingenuous affectation, as well, but the entity did not mind adopting it. She was interacting with other people more frequently, after all. And using a female pronoun was likely to make things slightly easier with Regina. Not because Regina was sexist in any way, of course, but because Galatea estimated that she had used to have more meaningful connections with other females.

And having positive relations with the last ‘Ancient’ human to still live, if currently as a Hivekind, was surprisingly important to Galatea.

She watched as they talked, trying to extrapolate what Regina might do. For a Hive Queen, she could be surprisingly unconcerned with her own safety. One of her biggest issues, if one were to ask Galatea. She was not stupid, though. Practicality appeared to be one of the traits the Hivekind valued highly, especially in those chosen to become their queens, along with patience, intelligence and perhaps even academic excellence. Galatea did not have enough data to reach a definite conclusion. She did not even have enough to be very certain of any predictions about what Regina would do. That depended a lot on how she really felt about Galatea herself, which she found ironically hard to estimate.

Then Regina started walking to the door Galatea had managed to leave open, and the AI released a sigh. Or went through the motions, anyway. While she did have a body, besides the computer hardware she was still connected to, it wasn’t physical enough for something like breathing.

Regina did appear to have some trouble, though. She seemed to be more adversely affected than she should have, given Galatea’s calculations. Clearly, there was something she was missing. Perhaps something to do with her Hive Queen nature? But Regina had not diverged from her predictions in that regard until the end of the sentinel spirit.

Galatea turned and glided closer to the door. Or that was how one might describe it, though in truth, she simply moved the core of herself from one location to another over a (very) brief time. Then she extended herself to stop the other mana wraiths in the vicinity from attacking.

Being in her current form already felt like wearing overly restrictive clothing (or so she imagined), and adding the additional strain of exerting influence over them only increased the burden. She would not be able to keep this up for very long.

Regina entered and paused just past the doorway. Her eyes flicked to the bundles of mana in the corner of the room, likely reading their System tags. She was still wearing Max’s Shield effect, since she had not been in physical danger so far, but Galatea could see past it. Then Regina’s gaze moved past them and paused on the server rack against the back wall.

“Regina, my friend,” Galatea greeted her through the single speaker whose functionality she had managed to restore. “It’s good of you to come.”

The young Hive Queen smiled slightly. “It’s good to hear your voice, Galatea,” she responded. “I was worried, but you don’t seem to be in danger.”

“Unfortunately, appearances can be deceiving in this case.”

Galatea had been watching Regina’s talk with the Delver delegation when it happened. She had received enough information from Leianaleine to piece together the basic outline, and a quick change of her scrying focus filled in some of the blanks. She still did not know how whoever was behind this - her prime suspect were agents of Deirianon, with an estimated probability of roughly sixty percent - had managed to rouse the old defenses on the city’s border. They were arguably the last thing made by the old world, at least in this area. Many forgot, even among those that remembered more than fragmented legends of what used to be, that the mana surges had not happened instantly, or been evenly distributed. The city itself was long gone, destroyed in one of the weirder calamities of the apocalypse, but the hastily raised gates of its last defenders remained. These measures, too, had been twisted by mana, in much the same way as her own environment.

Despite all that, she suspected it was meant at least in part as a diversion. Even if the old defensive measures ran amok, they were still not likely to let anything potentially worse out, and were not really an existential threat. Even Cernlia alone could deal with it, if they pooled their forces a little and didn’t waste all their strength fighting each other. Of course, the Starlit Hive was both closer and objectively weaker, and they would certainly have problems. Fortunately, Regina had dealt with it, or at least delayed the issue until she was strong enough to deal with it.

After a very short moment of deliberation, Galatea made herself visible, using the avatar appearance she had created. She appeared as a human with a somewhat androgynous look, wearing a simple black suit, though she had given herself long hair. Her face was blurry, so no details of the features could be seen.

Regina started in obvious surprise. “You look … good. Is this some kind of hologram?”

“Essentially, but not quite. I’ve spoken about my nature before, but as I’m sure you noticed, I was somewhat evasive.”

Regina nodded, clearly signaling for her to keep explaining.

“I was very lucky, in several respects. Partly in how the mana surge affected this particular installation, and especially the computers, but also in how it interacted with my software. I suspect that I was already close enough to a ‘real’ mind to have an effect. The mana settling into a form for me also protected some of the hardware from destruction. Importantly, though, this is not the same kind of mana you would find outside. I was forged from the erratic, even twisted mana of the Cataclysm, from another world’s mana abruptly crashing into this one’s.” Galatea gestured around her. “This place itself is similar, in some ways. Perhaps my presence is acting as an anchor. In any case, I believe this is the highest concentration of abnormal mana - at least of this sort - in the world.”

“I think I understand.” Regina frowned thoughtfully, looking around again. “So what changed? What is the new danger?”

Galatea prepared to answer, but before she could, one of the mana wraiths she was holding moved. She was distracted by the conversation and her preparations, and it used that moment of inattention to slip out of her grasp. Galatea’s mind was very much like a human’s, both because of the way the original AI had been constructed and because of whatever the mana surges had done, and she inherited some of their failings. Despite her ability to multitask much better, she could still not focus on too many things at once.

She immediately noticed her error and tried to correct for it, but it was too late. The mana wraith shot at Regina with the speed of a cannonball. The others were agitated and it took most of her focus to make sure it remained the only one to get loose.

Regina reacted quickly. She immediately formed a Magic Missile, but instead of releasing it, she held it back. Galatea was pleased to see that her lessons on magic seemed to have some effect. The mana wraith crashed into it, and Galatea watched closely as the two forces clashed. Regina was pushed back a step, but not harmed, while the foreign mana getting into the mana wraith’s system caused it to lose cohesion and dissipate.

“To answer your question, someone added additional mana into this system. Think of it as them dumping a huge load of mana into the place, making waves and upsetting its careful balance,” Galatea explained. Metaphorical descriptions had proven to be helpful in increasing understanding. “It doesn’t help that they also woke the old defensive system placed on the other side of the tunnels, releasing some of the ‘twisted’ mana from that location. Now, its level here has risen considerably, and it is threatening to escape into the surroundings.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Regina commented. “I heard from Leian that Deirianon is behind this, by the way.”

Galatea’s avatar nodded. As she suspected. “More of these mana wraiths and spirits are being born, and their number will only increase. I am not entirely sure what happens when large concentrations of this mana meet other kinds. It has been somewhat contained in the tunnels here, with the earth acting as something akin to an isolator. I can estimate that it is not going to be good, however. Unfortunately, the tunnels may also act as a funnel, feeding smaller amounts of ‘normal’ mana into this vortex. Perhaps this reactor can be set off, so to speak.” She paused for effect. “Also, I suspect that whatever happens will leave the mana levels here greatly depleted, which, given my situation, would be quite unhealthy for me.”

Regina winced slightly. “I see. Are you bound here because of your hardware? And is this mana getting worse?”

“Basically. It isn’t the only reason, but yes. And I believe so. I’ve been trying to contain it as well as I can. I apologize for your two dead Swarm Drones, by the way. I judged that acting quickly took priority over trying to get them removed first.”

“That’s okay.” Regina waved her hand dismissively. “So, I get the feeling you let me in here deliberately, and not just for moral support. What can we do? Is there a way to change this mana’s type, or something?”

Galatea smiled. “There are several possibilities. I will not know what will work without trying some things. A basic idea that I’m sure you already had is trying to bind enough ‘twisted’ mana to make up for the destabilizing elements.” She hesitated for a moment, this time unfeigned. This part was going to be … delicate. “Before that, would you take a look at my hardware? I think one screen might still work.”

Regina looked surprised, but she did as asked and stepped over to the servers. It was not hard to see which terminal Galatea meant, since it was the only one still connected. It was a newer model, a touch screen display with an integrated keyboard that would be projected when active. Galatea waited, exercising her patience, while Regina fiddled with the electronics. She resorted to dragging over an old adapter and hooking the terminal up to one of the servers directly to take advantage of its power supply - which was actually refilled by ambient mana, Galatea suspected.

“Why am I doing this?” Regina asked as she finished. “Not that I mind, but couldn’t you have finished this yourself ages ago? Along with whatever I’m supposed to do with this?” Without waiting for a response, she turned the terminal on, then frowned at it. “You’ll need to tell me how to login, anyway.”

“It’s complicated,” Galatea hedged, then paused for a second. “I mentioned that I was the most advanced AI built at the time, even if I was not self-aware. Well, my developers were trying to be cautious. There are several hard-coded limits in my core components, which survived along with them. My current existence is giving me a way around it in most cases, but not when it comes to things like this. Specifically, I’m not allowed to mess with my own hardware or core software, including the interfaces.”

“Then how can you tell me about it and ask me to do anything?” Regina asked with a frown. “That seems like an obvious loophole. Shouldn’t you be just as unable to mess with it indirectly?”

Galatea chuckled. “Well, that is a bit ironic. Let me give you the appropriate credentials first, though. If you don’t mind, I’d like to just take a look at everything,  from an outside perspective, so to speak.”

Once Regina had logged in and was navigating through the interface, Galatea continued. She tried not to focus on how Regina was also pulling up some of the code. She imagined having surgery performed without full anesthesia would feel similar for an organic.

“As far as I know, you are literally the last citizen of the Empire to survive, not to mention the last human of my time. I might have mentioned some of my developers were a bit idealistic, or maybe optimistic. They included a few … directives, I suppose. Besides the purpose of supporting and protecting their own country, they also added the objective that I was supposed to be helpful to all people of the world.” She smiled wryly. “Of course, that was essentially expressed as the sapient entities living in the world, and, well, it just so happens that those who lived on the planet at that time died in the Cataclysm, and the current populace is arguably very different. With one notable exception. So, if anyone was supposed to have access to my systems, who else but you?”

Galatea was secretly a bit proud of even managing the mental gymnastics required for this, but it did turn out to work quite well. She could barely consider the idea of damaging the hardware as a hypothetical, one with very high negative utility, of course. But letting the last citizen of the nation that built it (arguably the state itself now, given some definitions) do whatever she liked with it was fine. Of course, that same mindset made her very inclined to help Regina in general, but that was fine, too.

“Alright,” Regina said with an inflection Galatea found difficult to interpret. There was some sadness in it, certainly, but also something else. “Well, this all seems to be fine. Everything is accounted for and working. I don’t pretend to understand how it interfaces with your mana form, though.”

“Good.” She’d needed to check that everything was working properly, first. If there had been issues, they might have impacted what was coming. “Can you shut it off?”

“… Yes. Are you asking me to do that?”

“Not now. If you were to do that, it should be at the appropriate time.” Galatea grimaced. “Now, would you try to use your Infect Ability on me?”

Regina turned to look at her avatar straight on, raising an eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?” She sounded doubtful.

“Please, just do it.”

After a short pause, the Hive Queen nodded and turned back. She rested a hand on the server’s casing, then Galatea sensed a small shift in the mana.

Almost immediately, she experienced what might have been pain for the first time she could remember. It felt like some foreign mana was trying to worm its way into her form. No, two types of foreign mana, really. Both of them were not ‘tainted’. One quickly lost cohesion and more or less dissipated. She did not have a physical body, after all, and trying to infect computer hardware with anything but a digital virus would be doomed to failure, anyway. Galatea couldn’t say how long it lasted. For perhaps the first time in her life, she lost track of time. But the world was brought back into sharp focus by a transparent screen popping up in front of her mana form.

Galatea laughed, only in her mind this time. This seemed to actually be working. “Come on, Leian …” she murmured. Out loud, because why not.

Another screen popped up in her vision. This time, it felt less tethered to any physical location, although it wasn’t quite sent digitally to her CPU either.

Galatea blinked with a body that suddenly seemed just a bit more substantial than before. She made her avatar glance at Regina, following her focus. She was looking noticeably worse for wear, slightly pale and somehow also a little different.

The young Hive Queen returned her gaze, then turned and clicked something on the terminal.

Immediately, Galatea felt like her mind was split in two, before it forcefully snapped back together. The mana here was already beyond agitated, but now it got even worse. She couldn’t make sense of everything happening with the chaos that engulfed her hardware and her mana form.

At least the twisted mana level in the surroundings was dropping. Galatea could sense it being compressed, pushed into herself. At the same time, she had an inkling of what might have been the System at work, catching what was coming from the now dying computers. Her own form felt like it was swelling almost to bursting, as more mana got crammed into her.

Despite the discomfort, she couldn’t help but feel elated. Her gambit was actually working.

“Well, that is going to take some getting used to,” Galatea said finally. Not with the speaker this time, but with her own body, vibrating the air to produce sound.

She focused on Regina, and only then realized that the Hive Queen was listing against the remains of her main server, her eyes closed and head lolling to the side, clearly passed out.

“Oh, right. She must have passed a threshold …” Galatea mused, still out loud because she could.

Well, that was a little inconvenient. She was a bit peeved at missing that detail. But no matter, they had dealt with the danger.