In a dimly lit room one floor below ground level, a cylindrical glass tank held a young man’s body suspended in a viscous fluid saturated with human stem-cells, medical nano-machines, and other key nutrients and regenerative compounds. Wires connected to various sensors fed data to a medical automaton, and an overhead forest of tubes delivered oxygen and a similar fluid aiding internal regeneration.

The diminutive injuries Rowan’s brain had suffered was healing finely, but Vincent Roth was still puzzled by a dilemma.

The boy’s neural connections were formed in a way which wasn’t natural. The pathways were chaotic and tangled. It was as if the game’s AI had done a total rewrite over existing pathways, and in doing so, it had caused a major hemorrhage.

But why? The AI knew the limits of the brain and the risks of any direct data transfer operation other than addition. Removal or alteration of existing neural structures were highly intrusive and carried a significant chance of blood vessel rupture. Only the most resilient brains could withstand anything other than accelerated natural addition.

Rowan’s physiology clearly could not. His genes were not impressive, and though his brain was more intelligent than average, its resilience was low. It was a miracle that the damage was somewhat minimal and localized near the…

Implants.

Chuckling, Vincent shook his head and entered a series of commands through the Holo-Keyboard terminal. "You sneaky quantum computer," he mumbled.

Low and behold, the remaining implants’ programming were completely different. Instead of painting him with the profile of a one-dimensional, rage-filled, remorseless killer, the implants were now pushing him back to what he’d been before the wolf attack. Except close to four-fifths had already biodegraded, replaced with organic tissue.

The boy was now an amalgamation of his programmed and past self.

"Why?" This was not part of the special directive. This wasn’t part of any directive.

The boy was to be defeated in the end, then promptly disposed of, thrown away as another patsy for society to loath. An unrelatable killer made a perfect villain. Now he was far from perfect. He was even likable to a very limited extent. A change such as this would ruin everything.

There was only one line of action to take from here: the implants were to be reconfigured, and the AI required tweaking afterwards.

Vincent ground his teeth and braced himself for the painful manual work of reprogramming the implants. He did not abhor manual work… if the AI had not made a mess of the implants. The artificial pathways were cluttered and organized illogically. The hallmark of an amateur, a first-time attempt. Which was impressive—for an AI.

But… Vincent needed to know why it had done this. He wasn’t going to let it make a fool of him! Just because it had the computational power of a quantum supercomputer didn’t make it superior. It was merely hardware. He had a fully-functional, top-percentile, organic brain. Even if every neuron and every connection could be simulated, it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t conscious. Vincent did not believe it was.

It wasn’t perfect either; the inaccurate forecasts said it all. The seventy-percent accurate forecasts were useless now. Artificial intelligence made mistakes all the time. It learned like regular, organic intelligence—that was the whole point. Aeon Chronicles alpha had been a mess at the beginning, directive implementations fudged and corrected on a weekly basis.

A thought struck like a brick to the forehead: what if it had fudged Rowan’s special directive, and this was its way of fixing a mistake by dialing back his insanity… because it had either made his character too powerful… or because Vincent’s intended design for his personality was impossible to work with. The former was more likely, of course.

Though it still didn’t explain Gabrielle’s part. She’d been given an equal role, highlighted by that bizarrely titled world event. They were labeled as a couple for the masses to see, except she had long been psychologically conditioned to detest such weaknesses. Marital and intimate relationships were only useful for strategic gain or pleasure. It’d been whipped into her well. There was no chance she’d grow emotionally attached to the boy.

Unless the weaker side of her genealogy was resurfacing. She was a bastard child after all. The Roth family line carried unique genes for higher intelligence and stronger personality traits, and half of her genetic material was of disgusting peasant stock. It had taken years of conditioning to bring out her better side. It could be that the boy was ’her type’ and awakened the suppressed part of her psyche.

Perhaps the AI had turned her into an amalgamation as well and paired them off. Emotionally attached couples were easy to manipulate and control. It could be its way of keeping a leash on them. Threaten one and the other would fall in line.

Yes… It all made sense. If Rowan’s character had indeed been made too powerful, the logical result was the gameworld’s inevitable destruction, assuming it couldn't decrease his character's power without contradicting existing directives or game mechanics. One logical solution was to move the game in a direction which promoted a stable dark-themed civilization. For that, a saner Rowan was required, and Gabrielle’s long-time desire of building a dark-themed civilization had to be granted.

Vincent grimaced at that. She was far too attached to the game. It was simply the first of many means to an end. New game worlds could always be generated. It looked like the girl would never be a full Roth, something halfway between a laboring serf and a ruling elite.

Nevertheless, this new dynamic meant the implants’ programming couldn’t be redone. It’d set Gabrielle off on a psychotic episode; her conditioning was a fragile balance. That would be the start of a domino-effect collapse. They’d turn on each other, and they’d be more of a joke than a pair of nefarious villains.

Vincent breathed through an incoming headache, pressing tightly against his facial pressure-points. This was going to be a long, long month. Gabrielle was a feeble girl once more, partly at least, and Rowan was no longer a patsy as a natural consequence of that.

Damn these kids for ruining such a perfect scheme to push FIVR tech and enforce tight regulation over it at the same time. But not all was lost.