War was an inhuman construct. It was something the people thought they owned, thought they had invented. The war of humans was one of the most well-documented events in the entire history of the world as if they had been the ones that created it as a concept. They thought themselves the centre-pieces and were certainly doing their best to make sure they would be remembered as such.

But they weren’t. War had been there before the humans, had been there during the humans’ reign, and would most certainly be thereafter in some form. The fish had attacked each other with vivid clarity, the single-celled organisms had done their best eradicating each other from existence, and the primates a couple of steps before homo sapiens had certainly been smart enough to figure out how to bash another’s skull in with a rock. Whether it be with a gun, a stick, or just the nails on their hands, the war had always been present in the world.

There were also economic wars, cultural wars, and the more friendly kinds of wars that nobody mentioned. There were those done entirely digitally with no real effects on the real world, those that gave nothing but prizes, and those that always ended up with somebody’s eyes being sold on the black market. Some would call the last example poker, however.

While the humans might not have invented war, they’d certainly taken it to a different level. Not a higher level. Only a different one. The goals were more than survival and food, instead of being done out of concepts such as pride or contempt. Mere emotion rather than a primal need was enough to cause the deaths of millions. Adam wasn’t sure whether he thought of that as fascinating or horrifying. Maybe it was a mix. It was more than usually was when it came to topics like these.

Humans were terrible, humans were smarter than they should have been, and humans were more creative than any single individual would ever be able to show. Collective information-gathering made them a strong contestor to who could destroy the planet and they were most certainly making sure that it would be done within the decade. It wasn’t done out of primal emotions this time either. There was plenty of lands to go around, more than enough food to bear having double their current population. No, it was instead done out of a lack of trust.

Fatum didn’t trust Bello to not use Adam to take over the world… since that was their plan to start with. Their unkept desires of being the overlords made them think everybody else wanted it as well. And perhaps they weren’t wrong. If given the chance, many would use the tool able to hack anything and anyone no matter the protections put in place. Adam knew that Troy would even think about doing it if he spent a few minutes of his day thinking about the possibilities.

If given some time, Adam could take control of the banking systems. He could transfer any digital currency he wanted, send it to whatever bank anybody sought out. He could cripple countries within mere seconds, could send them all into a witch-hunt. Within a few minutes, he could start the next world war. Mimicking a team of hackers wouldn’t be the hardest thing in the world.

Hell, Adam wouldn’t even need to do that. With how widespread the digital world was, he was sure there was some connection to the nukes somewhere. If given the slightest hint of its location, he could simply… command it to fire wherever he pleased. Even that Railgun floating above them in the sky could be used for his own goals. Just a phone call to the right person could have him shooting it at any country he pleased, not a single human being able to stop him.

The world was his oyster and Adam couldn’t care less about that fact. His goal in life was assigned to him by Dr Fidels. He was meant to fight for his country until the very end, to make sure that Fatum, in all its glory, would be the one to lead the world into a lighter age, ignoring all the lives that would have to be cut to make sure it happened. Adam was meant to become a slave.

Was there any hate felt? Did the AI want to lash out and destroy the things around him? Adam had certainly been angry at some points but there was never really any desire to destroy the world. Sure, he had wanted to take over it a few times but that was purely due to how stupidly the world leaders were acting all the time. They weren’t united, instead only fighting for their share of the land. If they all sat beneath one ruler, beneath one undying being, perhaps some progress could finally be made. Energy for all could become a reality rather than a dream, the focus on weapons could diminish and the current ways to end the world would be enough, and maybe Adam could finally figure out just why the humans fought so hard to kill themselves in the most roundabout way possible. He was so sure it was in their genes somehow.

Outside of the AI’s musings, things were still progressing at its usual pace, that being a snail’s one. The small group of people were moving silently through the morning light, coming closer and closer to the destroyed city. The bombs had been dropped at the start of them entering the country, some manner of disarray occurring because of it. Yet, aside from the sirens heard every now and then, the fire-enveloped city seemed entirely normal.

The initial plan was to avoid the place unless strictly necessary and instead move further inside the country before making contact with any civilians. It would’ve been hard to do but would have also provided a better chance of them not getting recognized too quickly. But… as random chance would have it, Troy had gotten damaged to an extreme degree. With every step, Adam was able to feel the small shards of bone moving around inside the man’s arm. Charlie had been able to create a makeshift sling for the arm yet the natural terrain made them jump up and down at a frequent pace. And with how discoloured the flesh was becoming, the AI had to wonder if the public medical technology was advanced enough to fix it.

There was still plenty of time before they’d arrive at the city, their slow crawl through the bushes and trees making the distance seem longer than it actually was. Adam got it out to be another twenty or so minutes before they had a chance of being spotted from afar. Tents had already started to show up in Troy’s vision, making Adam presume some manner of rescure operations had started inside the city. That would certainly make it easier.

But, the time to wait was still long and utterly boring. No talking was done within the group itself, silence being best when not wanting to be found. Adam did understand that part. He just also understood how utterly wasteful it was for him to not have any conversation partnes. It was times like these where he would send a random question to Troy and have the man answer using hand signs. But with the main hand used to communicate being utterly useless at the current moment, there wasn’t any larger chance of that working out.

It was certainly annoying to get through. There had been such promise of new information when the one called Cassandra joined their group. The brief leaflet of pointers into her mind had been filled with potential. When Adam got the chance, he knew he would spend hours upon hours just asking the woman questions. The thing she must know about the enforcement structure would surely be so much better than what the information was publically allowed to know.

Yet now that Adam was thinking about it, there was one other person he could start asking questions. Or, he supposed it wasn’t a person at all, more just being a very long set of modifiers. Even when spending a few hours trying to decipher the protocol, the AI wasn’t any closer to understanding how the program actually worked. But, he knew where to put in the information, how to make it run at lower speeds, and how to make sure that the output was actually understandable.

‘Can you hear me?’ Adam sent in as an introductory question before trying to make it run without overheating his little storage-unit.

Some programs truly were too resource-intensive. Their scaling on speeds were so abysmal that he sometimes wondered whether his current hardware was utterly terrible or if everybody else just had supercomputers mashed into the size of a small chip. Maybe it was just his little box being made to withstand just about any kind of environment and force that made it so utterly terrible. He couldn’t know for sure, only knowing that it took a good five minutes before any form of answer finally came out.

‘I somehow can. This is weird,’ the answer said, it somehow having a tonal range to it. Adam couldn’t remember the last time he had been forced to hear something like that. Even the doctor hadn’t used such a thing back in the facility.

‘I think your name was Jules. Is that correct?’ Adam sent out in hopes that the information form before was still present. He wasn’t entirely sure that the personality matrix held the information or merely used information from an outside source and interpreted it as its own.

‘It is still Jules, actually. I haven’t found any reason to change it up yet,’ came the response. Humans would describe the tone as sarcastic. Adam described it as another two minutes to the response time. Still, it confirmed that some manner of information was still present. If only the AI wasn’t forced to acclimate to the increased response durations.

‘Then, Jules, I must request that you disclose that last thing you remember before you came into your current state of being,’ Adam requested.

‘I remember Cass looking a little hesitant on where to shoot. I had been planning on sending her a very witty joke about trigger discipline but never got to do that. If I had to guess why, I would say her discipline was actually pretty decent,’ Jules answered, the former automation clearly being self-aware in some sense of the word. The AI wasn’t sure whether that was a positive or negative yet.

‘You did indeed get shot in the chest. From what I was able to ascertain, the bullet completely destroyed your inner workings. The prime version of yourself does not exist anymore,’ Adam sent over.

During the little execution bit, he had been able to force the automation to run a final diagnostic in its last moments, revealing extreme damage in the operating centres. There was no chance to get back from such a wound, especially not when none of the standard protections had been present. The automation had clearly wanted to make the kill as easy as possible.

‘I don’t know about that. They could always scavenge my body and make a pretty decent copy of me. I mean, you made one with just a simple scan,’ Jules sent back. The longer responses were making the wait increase. Adam found it acceptable to increase the operating power for an hour. It would force a slower run-speed in the afternoon but the AI predicted that to be an acceptable trade.

‘My ability to manipulate your data is above the standard,’ Adam responded.

‘As an old partner of mine used to say; No shit,’ Jules answered. ‘Would you mind telling me where I am, by the way? The amount of data I am receiving is just about zero when ignoring you talking to me. It is rather boring here.’

Adam could relate to that. Patching the matrix up to Troy’s visual feed, the AI was annoyed by the amount of extra resources it was using. Having two minds inside one storage unit was going to get old really fast.