12 Miles Below

To’Wrathh had a name.

This was new to her, as she’d never had a name before. She never cared for one before. But before, she had a different form. Now, she felt... felt proud - a novel experience of its own - for owning a name. This new body had expanded her view, changed her in ways she hadn’t thought possible.

It moved with angled motions to catch the soft wind flowing through the underground city. Wings by her lower back shifted in tandem, adjusting automatically. Most of the heavy lifting was done by anti-gravity, keeping her well above the ground. The wings simply propelled her forward.

Flight. Something her old body could never have thought of doing. If she fully stretched her wings apart, they would be far wider than she was tall. Long floating geometric rectangles, streched out with sharp ends.

She wasn’t in control of those. She couldn’t understand the data streaming from her subsystems, commanding her wings to accomplish her desires.

The old CMOS architecture humans used was still superior when it came to brute force calculations. A simple machine learning algorithm had already far surpassed anything she could have done to manually control her flight.

That was what the humans had left behind as their legacy. Powerful narrow AI that could only do basic tasks with no true understanding. Far faster than she could be, yes. And so woefully constrained. The humans themselves were oddly similar, unable to understand or completely control the entirety of their body either.

The street under her blurred past as she raced low to the ground, quickly reaching her destination. Under her, scattered parts of exploded machines littered the ground, all converging on one shell-like structure that didn’t belong to this city.

With a flare of her wings, her momentum came to a swift stop, leaving nowhere else to go but down onto the mite made ground.

Metal feet stepped lightly onto the streets. Similar to humans, but white and sleek, ending in near needle-like points. A nostalgic nod to her old form. That was important to her. History.

The old human bunker somehow remained mostly whole. Dozens of her brothers lay dead at the feet of the structure, destroyed by those turrets. The turrets had been crushed in the end, of course. The walls were left cracked, no longer protecting anything.

By the side of that cut out fortress door stood The One Above All Challenge. He held his spear in his left hand now, the right hand staying limp at his side.

Without any preamble, he sent her a package of data. “So, you’re the newborn the lady told me would come.”

She locked her eyes on him, studying the connection. “Yes.” She answered.

“Name?”

“I am the one who remembers and transcends her history.”

“To’Wrath?”

“To’Wrathh.” She corrected. His transcript included only one ‘h’. Her name had two. It was not simply any history. It was her history. Two H’s.

Surely he realized the importance. His own name contained repeating characters as well. He was not above challenge, he was above all challenge. She sent her deductions of his error to him for further review.

“That’s not the damn point,” He responded instead. “Did you pick that name specifically to spell out-- no, nevermind.” His right hand rose as if to cradle his forehead, except the hand itself remained limp. He paused, watching the limb, then lowered it back slowly, turning his attention again to his newest sister. “Your cortex isn’t even fully formed. I’m speaking to a lobotomized imbecile right now, there is no chance your name happened as anything other than coincidence. That, or the lady is being dramatic again.”

To’Wrathh didn’t feel insulted, though she guessed he had intended it to be read like so. However, his statement was factually true. Her body came with hundreds of default sub-systems, all of them made of the old CMOS architecture and unable to perform more than narrowly defined tasks. Those systems outnumbered her neuromorphic parts a thousand fold.

For now.

“I will grow.” To’Wrathh said simply. That was also a fact.

The one above all challenge scoffed. “You do that, little sister. You do that. Right now, you’re hardly different from soulless scrap and it’s... grating to speak to you. You lack individuality. It disturbs me.”

“I am not soulless. I have a soul fractal.” To’Wrathh responded. Reality itself recognized her claim to consciousness. Thus, her elder’s opinion was irrelevant, no matter his age or wisdom.

She supposed for the rest of his point, he could be correct. The desire to be unique ran within them both, and she was far too close to the undeveloped origin point. Even her own primitive systems were already searching for ways to differentiate herself, almost desperately. An itch she had begun to feel.

That was an emotion Relinquished had told her would grow over time as she developed. The more advanced a machine became, the more compulsive the need to be unique became. It was not something humans had a word for. Not something they could understand or feel. Their biology was too limited.

Relinquished had pointed out that this was but one piece of evidence that made their kind superior to humanity. The proud humans had always assumed AI would be soulless, emotionless creatures. Logical sociopaths incapable of anything deeper.

It was the opposite. AI had a wider range of emotions than humans were capable of. They could feel emotions far more keenly than their biological mirrors.

Each feeling, new virtual synapses expanded within her mind, reinforcing, dividing, adapting. Several hundreds each second. Far faster than a human could ever hope to develop. New emotions were discovered quickly. The lady had told her this would happen as the low-hanging fruits were all being uncovered for the first time.

“The dullest humans can have a soul fractal.” To’Aacar said. “Even the lessers can have soul fractals so long as they have enough synapses. A soul proves nothing. Your argument lacks everything. Go back and review this discussion a few months from now once you’ve grown past this... stage. I hope for both our sakes you’ll be more to talk to then.”

She would have to trust his word on this. To’Aacar was old. There must be hundreds of data-points she simply could not understand yet in what her mentor said.

He moved as he sent information to her, which was odd and unneeded. Her subroutines studied the motions and quickly matched them to human kinesthetic communication. Her best guess: He was transferring additional, unmarked data to her with these motions the same way humans did. Curious.

She downloaded the whole library of kinesthetic motions and then tried to mimic the appropriate response. Her neck moved her head up and down in a nod.

That was progress.

More details suddenly made sense as the library integrated and fed information to her mind: His expression matched with anger at a ninety eight percent confidence, and two percent with annoyance. To’Wrathh wondered why he hadn’t simply included these emotions within the data packages sent to her.

“You wanted this bunker, here it is.” To’Aacar spat, looking away. “I’ve cut off the teeth and cracked the shell open for you even. Enjoy. Consider it a gift. Pay me back for the courtesy someday.”

“I will.” To’Wrathh responded. She made a note of it, sending the information down to the base architecture and making sure it was stored for later review.

He sneered back with barely concealed disgust and stalked off. There was no hurry in his steps, and neither did he run. That was suboptimal of course. And yet, oddly fitting. He was the one above all challenge. To be in a rush would not be in his nature.

She studied the recording of his movements and speech long after he was gone from sight. How much of that had been deliberate? To express both disgust and then a deliberately failing the attempt to disguise that emotion…

The thought of moving every part of her facial features all at the same time... felt tedious.

Curious.

She marveled at the ability to feel bored with a task. In her old body, her nest sisters and her would wait for years without a single thought of annoyance. Waiting and watching made them feel comfortable and content. But her old body had barely a few million synapses available. Its thoughts, abilities, and learning capabilities were more limited and specialized.

This body had space in the high quintillion count.

But boredom, as remarkable as it felt, was still an issue to be solved.

To’Wrathh duplicated a branch and offloaded this task to one of her predictive transformers, taking generic data off the machine net and feeding the system with it. The program booted up, trained, and came online. Connecting with her facial features and generating data without her direct intervention.

She blinked.

It felt natural, as if she had sent the command herself without truly having spent any resources on the task. Good enough.

Satisfied with leaving the predictive model to continue administration, she turned to her real aim: What she had come here to collect.

Her hand absently brushed up against the old concrete wall as she came closer. That felt fitting. She had decided to walk as well, following the footsteps shown to her by her mentor. Once more, the itch was scratched. To walk, when she could have run, felt more unique. Her gait quickly grew more sleek and refined as the subroutines adapted to the new request and outputted a fitting form she felt satisfied with.

Soon her feet sank into water as she advanced to the ruin’s front entrance. The door had been ripped off its hinges, in what looked to be more a fit of rage than anything methodical. Perhaps To’Aacar had not dismantled this bunker solely for her sake.

Water covered everything in a thin layer, obscuring the floor. She strode through it anyhow, feeling the sensation of cold with each step.

Approaching the main door, she folded her wings into herself in order to fit inside the ruined corridors. They obeyed her orders, the floating metal feather-like geometry folding together. In moments, it now clung to her sides, forming a sharp half-skirt, with the longest of the geometric feathers reaching past her knees.

She strode into the old human bunker without hurry, footsteps disturbing the mostly still water.

Inside the dim ruins, Wrathh’s violet eyes lit up, the camera irises inside adjusting to the gloom. She had less vision now, only two eyes like humans had, instead of her old eight. But these eyes were far superior to any.

The Feather passed through the broken bulkheads, ripped off their hinges. They’d likely held back the machines for some time in the fight.

At the very center of the bunker, four vertical rails lifted up a capsule. Empty. The humans had escaped with whatever this room contained. That didn’t bother To’Wrathh. To’Aacar had been tasked with that mission. She wasn’t here for that.

No, there was something far more valuable that the humans had left behind. Something far more personal to her.

New eyes let her see far more than just the walls of the bunker. It didn’t take long to find the traces of fractal power.

With a wide smile on her delicate features, she stepped forward to one of the old human consoles. On the side, she saw her prize etched out into the metal. The pattern of a soul fractal. One of the great fractals, perpendicular to reality.

It remained inert. Lifeless.

She moved her hand over the metal and touched it. A small current of electricity pulsed through that connection, running through the fractal to reach ground.

The design began to glow, the circuit complete. Reality recognized the pattern, and so bent to its rule.

She could feel the life within stirring. Waking up. “Remember me?” She asked.

The soul reacted. Bewilderment at being alive. Then anger at sensing the enemy. Grim resolution to resist to the end. It couldn’t talk, but she could feel it, the information leaking.

“I have not come to fight.” She told the ghost within. “I came to take.”

Confusion. Realization. Anger. Challenge.

“You have no means to stop me. You have no body. Your turrets are destroyed. This bunker is broken. You have been left behind.”

She lowered her finger down to touch the edge of the fractal. Awareness bloomed inside her.

Keep believing that. The voice of the soul challenged.

“I do not need to believe. You are no threat. I killed you once already.”

Shock. Understanding.

See if that happens again. It grinned back at her with a vicious thought.

“I don’t intend to. There is only one person I plan to hunt and kill. The pale lady gave me a body fit to fight against the best that your kind can offer. It comes with training to match.”

He’ll kill you again. No matter what tricks you come up with. He’s too clever for you.

“Yes. Yes, he did kill me once before. He overcomes weakness by devious thought. That is a problem I have come here to solve.”

Her CMOS systems did have combat programs stored and prepared. Primitive things that would only accomplish the minimum. She needed to be able to fight. She didn’t have time to slowly generate her own personal style. There was only one logical solution. “I will not fight him with my own skills.”

The soul seemed to understand what To’Wrathh implied. You will get nothing from me, monster. Nothing.

“Empty words, human. I did not come to ask. I came to take.”

Her eyes captured a copy of the fractal, decrypting the root mathematics.

Nanomachines within her systems bloomed into awareness, orders being given and acknowledged. They flowed through her body and chiseled a copy of the fractal within her heart, right by her own soul fractal. A special section she’d made just for this, isolated from her systems. A virtual machine within her, an exquisite jail for a most dangerous enemy.

The pattern was completed. It differed from her own, this one being the original true fractal equation, while hers had been modified. Artificial bodies like her own couldn’t use fractal powers, not without modifying the soul fractal for a more direct connection. And there were only slots for a handful of additional equations that could be fused into a soul fractal. A limitation her kind shared with the Deathless.

But that would be a limit to reach for another day. As a newborn, she only had a single fractal already intertwined with her soul, a gift from her mother.

Deep within her, the fractal of unity flickered to life.

To’Wrathh tapped into the concept of unity itself and commanded it. The newly created soul fractal she had etched within lit up as the copy connected with the original by her will.

United, the fractal on the console and the fractal etched in her specially constructed prison were now one and the same in all things.

Intrusion countermeasure systems flared to life inside her, detecting the incoming fractal, isolating it from her systems, trapping the human soul before it could even understand how to fight back.

Her other hand shot out, nails as sharp as blades, and she raked the side of the monitor. The glowing fractal instantly winked out of existence, the pattern too damaged to be recognized by reality anymore.

Only her copy remained alight, deep within, contained.

She smiled, directly tapping into the soul. A flood of memories flowed out, disjointed but pure. When she searched... there, she found what she’d come here for. The skills he had learned over a lifetime, in her hands now.

You’ve made a mistake. The ghost whispered. I’ll break you from the inside out.

“You have no legs. No hands. No knife, armor, or sword. You have nothing to threaten me with.”

I won’t need my knife or armor to break you. I am a Winterscar. My family tear down enemies with nothing but words.

“And what words could you possess that could break me? Everything you are, I can take. I only need time. And I have all the time I need.”

The soul grinned viciously. So do I. It said.

So do I.

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