Systems of Control

Leaving behind the room filled with wounded knights, Matt was escorted out into the sunlight, Cassielle still carrying the poison dart in her left hand as she led him outside. She wanted to know more about his weapons, his people, and the poison currently killing her knights.

“This poison is more powerful than most we’ve ever encountered, I doubt that even one of them will survive this night.” She gripped the dart harder in her white fist, small green stama tightening in her hand until the metal dart snapped.

He wasn’t sure what to do. If he refused them, then not only would he be treated significantly worse by the Knights, but they wouldn’t be able to fight against his own people with any kind of success. He mightn’t survive another attack if these women weren’t strong enough to be able to fight against the System.

Anxiety ate away at his insides, while he considered his options, trying to decide with confidence which threat was the greatest. He glanced across to Lilith, who made the difference in the last battle with the attack drones. She still wouldn’t stand a chance if the System seriously fought against them; soldiers, vehicles, and edge of the atmosphere supersonic unmanned aircraft, all made her sidearm look little more than a slingshot.

Even so, already she had more than enough power to destroy Matt, what difference does a bit more power make. Dead is dead, whether by bullet or by nuclear bomb.

He was quickly corralled into the wide, open area where he’d been seated when his mind had been broken into. This time there were far fewer Knights at hand ready to listen. Those that weren’t wounded were working hard to support their camp, rushing around, exhausted expressions and sighs filling the room.

Matt felt a growing pressure forming around him as the women quieted to listen to him, their faces more serious than he’d ever seen them. They seemed to take the threat that he posed seriously, finally frightened by his connection to that power that had killed so many of their own. Their eyes scanned over his rifle with a renewed blend of fear and curiosity.

“What can you tell us?” Cassielle asked, her words directed at Lilith but with little patience he answered anyway. Lilith working to translate his words.

“The drones are dangerous.” He said simply, he knew a lot more but it was difficult to know where to start.

“We all already know that, idiot.” Lilith replied to his words immediately rather than translating them. She turned to Cassielle, “They explode when they take too much damage.”

“Well, our bows weren’t doing much damage to them. At times, they kept going on after getting hit!” She replied, obviously upset about that, taking serious pride in her weapons.

“That would be because their flight path is too slow. The drones predict the flight from a combination of aim detection and predicting flight paths of projectiles.” He paused to take a breath, thinking about friends and enemies, “If you want to hit, make sure you swap to the target and shoot immediately. Any lag between aiming and firing, and the drone will notice it and dodge.”

Lilith translated his words for him, using a few different terms to fully translate the meaning.

“They’re made from some thick and powerful armour but compared to any other machines, they’re the lightest you’ll find. They’re only lightly armed but are hard to hit.” He was speaking from the viewpoint of a rifleman so talking about bows made the challenge of hitting tenfold closer to impossible.

“Usually they only provide support, enemy detection, suppression, deployment of various chemical agents and destructive missiles.” Rarely are they used as the main force of an attack, this time was an exception, the formation a familiar drone swarm. He’d rarely seen more than half a dozen drones at once, they were more effective when they were unexpected and unseen.

“This time they were only lightly armed, poison darts, missiles with concussive and incendiary warheads. They were just sent here as a warning, a push back after getting attacked last time. Possibly also as a test to see how well you can hit back, and how dangerous you really are.” Certainly, his briefing hadn’t included anything about the magic used against them or the combat capabilities of these demonic young women.

Lilith translated his words for Cassielle, bastardising the words at her own leisure. “They’re the weakest?!” She exclaimed taken aback at the words.

“Yeah, but a drone swarm is still incredibly dangerous. They make up for their thin armour and weak weapons with speed and sheer numbers.” He thought back at how often he’d been out-performed by the drones in training. So often he’d been too focused on one, and was hit by another which had managed to sneak around behind him. When swarmed by them, it was very difficult to survive without proper support.

The only reason he’d managed to survive the town was a combination of Lilith’s power and the number of targets that had distracted the swarm. If it was just him and Lilith they’d be certainly be dead.

“Don’t let them swarm you. They fire and move faster than a human can think, if there’s one behind you, then you’re good as dead.” Matt let the tactical thoughts slip, and Lilith made sure that it was heard, everyone in earshot was listening carefully.

“Don’t they have any weaknesses?” Cassielle asked, exasperated.

“Weak armour and low ammunition for relatively small calibre weapons” He replied instantly, Lilith tried her best to translate the words.

“They have thin armour and use limited amounts of weak weapons.” Lilith whispered thinking over the words as she spoke them.

“Weak weapons?” Cassielle was again revealing her stress to the group, “There was nothing weak about those things!”

Matt paused for a moment before speaking, “They’re weak, comparatively speaking. They could have been armed with rapid-fire guns, killing much more efficiently, and hitting with perfect precision.” He took a breath, “They could have launched a tank, impervious to any damage you could manage while killing every living thing within 5 klicks. They could have launched a supersonic aircraft to kill anyone on this planet at any point in time. They could have sent through a nuclear warhead in one of a dozen different ways and turned this country into a crater.”

“Drones are the weakest.” He finally concluded, Lilith staring at him unable to comprehend half the words he’d spoken but still able to make out the gist of it.

She hadn’t translated any of it, instead turning to Cassielle, “He says that they could wipe out the country if they wanted, or kill anyone anywhere as they please. I only understand bits and pieces of how it works but I don’t think he’s lying.”

After her words, silence filled the room, the Knights facing their mortality after making enemies of a society that wields the power of gods. Something most of the women wouldn’t be able to comprehend.

From a long silence Cassielle spoke up, “Fine, let’s start at the weakest. What weaknesses do the drones have, how can we kill them?”

“There are no particular places to target, they are quick so you won’t have time to target specifics even if there was a weak point. Often it’s best to destroy them quickly so you don’t get blindsided during a real battle.”

“Real battle?” Cassielle asked, obviously disbelieving of his words.

“If you have this much trouble fighting against them, don’t even imagine trying to take on a real battle with them.”

“Them?” Lilith asked him, “You really are separating yourself from them now, aren’t you?”

“The drones recognised me as a threat…” He said simply.

“Not getting along well with the family, Krilm?”

“My family is dead.” He replied in a whisper, “They are the ones who killed them… most of them.” He clarified, mind fighting against the memories. He felt illusionary waters climbing up to his mouth drowning him. Pushing down the sensation, he managed to return to the conversation at hand.

“How many are there?” Cassielle asked her voice lowered to a fearful whisper.

“At least 1 million soldiers, I don’t know for sure the details on equipment or anything though. I was just a soldier myself, there was no need to know too much about forces not participating in a fight.” He thumbed at the worn skin on his hands.

“1 million?” her voice quiet, even Lilith was shocked at the number.

“That’s not including drones or vehicles. Most of the vehicles you don’t have a chance of fighting against either, their armour is too thick to puncture with anything short of a cannon. That, and some of the drones fly too high and fast to be able to be shot down.” There was a silence forming after his words.

“We can’t win?” Cassielle asked, her eyes distant.

“Giving up rather early, aren’t you?” Lilith told her, already recovering from the shock of being faced with a harsh reality.

“It’s impossible.” Matt said a distant look to his eyes, his arms shaking slightly.

“This worked pretty well.” Lilith lifted the pistol, still shifting with dark tones. “They didn’t have a chance to dodge either.”

“Can we get more?” Cassielle asked some hope rising in her voice.

“No.” Matt replied quietly and simply, “With some help, you can make basic firearms but it’d take centuries of refinement to make something good enough to scratch a drone, let alone anything else.”

Cassielle looked down at her hands, “Isn’t there something we can do?”

Matt, already having thought about this for some time himself, had a few ideas but few of them had any chance of success. “If you can find a way to shut the rift on them, that might work.”

“Close the rift?” Lilith herself was uncertain as to what he was talking about.

“You don’t know about it?” He asked uncertain as to what words to use to describe the situation to them, “My world is connected to yours through some kind of blended space. Scientists were still figuring out how it worked within the framework of modern physics but I don’t know what the current theories were.

“Essentially within that space is both of our worlds and depending on where you go you might end up landing in either world.”

Lilith looked confused, “Cassielle, I don’t think he comes from this realm.”

They looked incredibly concerned as they looked over him carefully.

“Where is this ‘rift’?” Cassielle asked seriously.

“Past the forest, I don’t know where exactly though, I was in a helicopter when we passed through.” He tried to remember accurately where he’d been at the time.

“Helicopter?” The alien word falling from Lilith’s lips, she wiped away her bloody nose as she mined through his memories for a meaning.

“An oversized drone carrying many people.” She translated the word for all the Knights listening in while Matt recovered from the mental stress.

“And… it has to be near or at ground level, some people came through the rift, so it has to be at least a small enough fall that it can be survived.” Matt thought over it considering possible locations.

“It would have to be a place that’s mostly clear of trees, maybe a hilltop or a clearing. A helicopter wouldn’t be able to fly through the forest, it’s also possible that the rift extends a fair way into the sky. If that’s the case, we can’t tell where it might be at ground level.” He speculated, thinking carefully over the possibilities.

“We’ll have people look into it.” Cassielle spoke quickly waving over a few Knights who’d been watching nearby, sending them off to investigate.

“How might we close it?” She asked.

“I don’t know,” he thought over the scientific data he’d seen before, “It might collapse under its own weight, it might fall apart after so much matter passes through.” He pressed his hands together clueless about how to proceed.

“So, our choices are between fighting an impossible to win war, or closing a rift that we don’t even know for sure even exists.” Cassielle grasped her sword, frustration evident in the shifting flow of her dark stama. “For now, we’ll send out scouts to locate the rift and any machines in the area.”

“Be careful, they’ll be expecting it. Probably have drones monitoring the area and a security team defending it. They won’t let you get nearby, you have high body temperatures and are incredibly easy to spot.”

“What should we expect from the security team?” Cassielle was already planning out their actions trying to figure out how to survive this coming war.

“Thick armour, you might be able to penetrate it if you could destroy the drones. Then again you might not. They won’t move as quickly as you, but they can react incredibly fast. Their accuracy should only be a little less than the drones, but with faster and more lethal projectiles, they’re not to be trifled with.

“If they have anything larger than a person, I doubt you’ll be able to do anything to it. If they decided to park an antipersonnel truck on this side of the rift, you won’t be able to scratch it or even get close to it. They’re more lethal, and more accurate than anything you’ve seen yet.”

Cassielle sighed, her eyes flickering from side to side while looking at nothing in particular. She whispered to a few Knights briefly, before they raced off at a rapid pace.

“You probably don’t need to worry about an immediate follow up attack or the formation of a serious beachhead. The system is too cautious to risk so much without knowing more about the situation” Matt considered the ideas further, “Though if they do make a beachhead, then this is as good as over. The question becomes when they take over, rather than whether.”

“The system, they’re your leaders?” Cassielle asked.

“Yeah, I guess that’s accurate. Every person, and every machine follows their orders.” He thought back to the many times he’d been introduced to those orders personally. Being personally contacted by the system was always nerve wracking.

“What can you tell us about them, how many people make up this system? Is it one leader in control of everything? A number of people forming a council? Where are they located?”

“I don’t know if the system is even human.” Matt replied, thinking back, he was never given a straight answer when he asked the elders.

“What do mean? Who would it be if it wasn’t human?” Cassielle asked him, her voice uncertain.

“Computers, machines, some form of AI? I know from how quickly it reacts to situations that there are AI systems as a part of it, I’m just not sure if there are any human elements in the decision-making systems.” He rubbed at his head thoughtfully.

“Computers, AI?” Lilith thought over the words suddenly giving a him a bloody nose and a headache as she extracted the information from his mind.

“The things controlling the drones,” She said, “They are minds created by men. Quicker and more accurate than human reactions, they are capable of incredible mathematical decision making, in no time at all.” Lilith said, while her nose bled.

Matt didn’t say anything, a little thankful that she didn’t ask him to try and clarify any further. As it was, he was having trouble finding the right words and thoughts to transmit to her.

“It’s hard to imagine such a thing… I’d thought they might have had some kind of tamed animal controlling them but to think that they created life.” Cassielle murmured to herself, “Are they taking the place of the gods?”

“They’re not living, they fall just short of that, but they make the most efficient decisions when given a series of variables and goals.”

“Nevertheless, a fearful thing.” Cassielle whispered. “Can they be turned against their masters?”

“With some time and equipment, but we don’t have any way of doing that here.” He replied, “That and I don’t know much about programming, even if we had some computers for it.”

Cassielle looked around herself, thinking.

Save them

Matt spoke up quickly, “The other thought that I had was that we don’t really know what you’re capable of. Your curses and… magic.” He spat the word out carefully. “They might affect the computers in some way. If you can interfere with thoughts using your purple stama, then you might find a way to manipulate computers.”

“We tried that when the drones attacked; it didn’t work.” Cassielle sighed.

The human mind is made up of electrical communications within the brain tissue, very similar to modern electronic systems. If they can get into a human mind, then it might be possible.

“They think different to a human. It might be that you just didn’t do it quite right this time, it’s difficult to fight an enemy that you don’t understand.” Matt continued thinking it over. “I’m guessing that you have to understand something about your target when you do your purple misted, head massage, nonsense?”

Lilith grunted in response to this strange term, “We need to understand how our target thinks to manage most communications, but with manipulation, we just need to give the right commands.” Matt recalled how he’d been manipulated into attempting to shoot Lilith earlier, when the demon’s purple haze consumed him.

“They don’t think anything like a human, they were made to receive commands but never in the kind of format that you’d understand. Try and try again, and there might be a chance. I have something that might help.”

Matt pulled out the helmet that he’d been carrying around with him for a while now. At first, he’d considered using it for translations, but for now at least that didn’t seem necessary.

He double checked the small computer system located in the back of the helmet and confirmed that it was still functional. The small battery pack attached should have enough charge to last for a long, long time, but all command inputs were completely destroyed. The small speaker was long gone and the buttons were located on other parts of his scattered armour.

“Lilith, if you would be willing to try, I have something that might help you figure out computer systems.” He pulled out his helmet sitting it in front of them, “If you can try to purple this thing up, I might be able to tell if you make a difference to it.”

“Purple it up? Give up on the horrible descriptions, Krilm. Indrikate, is the term you’re looking for. You make it sound like I’m a 3-year-old messing around with paints.” Lilith replied.

“At least I can remember names. Indrikate it is then, just give it a go.” He lifted the helmet to his head, seeing some flickers through the half-melted visor, revealing that it was stuck in a limited heat sensor mode. The audio sensors were currently focussing on native sounds, without translation.

Lilith gave Cassielle a brief glance, she nodded in return. The stama along Lilith’s skin swam in a gentle rhythm as she focused, shifting to purple as they spread over her body. The stama forming gentle curves and swirls flowing along her skin with beautiful colour, stealing away his attention. Through his thermal vision, he could tell that where her skin glowed, her temperature rose beyond 60 degrees Celsius.

She touched her hand against the helmet, eyes closed as she focused. Through his bond with her, he could feel her strength, her focus, the warmth spreading out across the ocean of her mind.

“Interesting.” The strangely disjointed thought flowed from that ocean, “This mind is simple, yet…”

Lilith’s thoughts chimed in now, “Don’t speak. I need to focus.”

“Don’t speak she says, desperately trying to understand the mind that exists in my own realm. Don’t think she says, hoping for me to become mindless.”

“Don’t think, or I will shut you up.” Lilith threatened still trying to focus.

“Empty threats filled with frustration. I am eternal, you a mortal. You do not get the better of me.”

“Shut it.”

“With my help, we can-”

“Silence!” The horrifying presence in the oceans of her mind was violently dragged into the depths, caged somewhere so deep beneath the surface that even thoughts couldn’t escape.

Nothing seemed to change as she sat there for some time, eyes closed focused on the battle inside of her head. “It’s not changing, I can’t get a read on it.” She ended up saying, as she relaxed her arm.

Matt, still unsure about what to do about the creature inside of Lilith’s head, tried to puzzle together the pieces of this problem with only a handful of parts.

He wanted to know what the creature, called Grikith, might have said had she allowed it to continue.

“What did you want to know, young Matt?” Grikith spoke to him, he could feel the thoughts caught on the shores of his mind, gentle yet so strange that he couldn’t ignore it.

“You… can speak to me?” Matt thought gently reaching out to the creature with the softest of touches himself.

“I am not some mere backwater demon birthed in the corpse of a loose lamb, I am Grikith, the eternal!” The demon quietly raged in his mind.

“Well… Grikith. Can you understand what we’re trying to do?” He directed the thought at it carefully.

“Of course, I am not a simple minded fool as she would have me.” The creature focused its thoughts, “What do you know of this simple creation?”

Matt gathered his memories on programming, mostly what he’d learnt from Pete when they were both kids. Focusing on those memories with all of his strength, he felt them flowing through his connection with Lilith.

She’d returned to staring at the helmet, trying to figure out it’s processes. “Try the back here, that’s where the brain of the computer is located.” He pointed out where the processor was resting in thick armour plating.

“Interesting…” Grikith let the thought carry to him as it investigated the memories he sent across. Lilith was so focused on his helmet that she didn’t seem to recognise her bleeding nose.

Without Grikith’s replies returning after some time Matt decided to try something else. He thought for a moment before holding the half-destroyed helmet out for her, “Maybe if you put it on, it might work better.”

Lilith, with some hesitation, took the helmet from him, staring into its face as she emitted a gentle purple glow. Carefully she lifted it up, staring inside of it, which was mostly filled with singed padding.

She wore a disgusted look as she gently lowered the helmet over her head, it went down to her chin but failed to fall properly into place. Matt soon realized that it was her horns that made it sit so awkwardly on her head, looking a little like a bobble head Ren had given him as a child. The helmet swayed back and forth on her head as she moved.

“What is this? I can’t see anything properly.” She waved her hands in front of her face. “Is this thing broken?”

“It’s in thermal mode, the hotter something is, the brighter it appears.” He replied to her as she looked around the room at all of the people gathered.

“This is interesting, but kind of irritating.” Her stama were still glowing purple, but for an instant the swirls flattened into straight lines binding around her limbs. “That’s better, it changed.”

“What?” Matt asked quickly, “The controls are destroyed, that shouldn’t be possible.”

“It switched, I’m not an idiot.” She lifted the helmet off her head as she replied to him.

When she finally let go of the device, Matt checked the switches again, looking through the visor to find that indeed it had switched to normal visual light. “I think you did it.” He finally let out.

“I did? It didn’t feel like it.” She let the purple in her skin fade away.

“It changed to normal sensors after you wanted it to, that shouldn’t be possible with the switches broken.” He let the helmet settle in Lilith outstretched hands. “That means that you interfered with the computer processes. Only basic command input but still… this means you should be able to affect the drones with practice.”

“With practice?” Cassielle asked, “Will that device suffice for that practice?”

“Does practice on a human, help with indrikating an insect?” He asked in return pointedly.

“Not considerably,” She replied thinking about it, “but it can help to figure out the basics.”

Matt looked deep inside again, seeking counsel with the strangest member of this conversation, yet perhaps the most confident. Whatever Grikith really was, and how its form as a demon made it behave, Matt wasn’t willing to turn down a potential strength just yet.

He’d already armed a strange woman threatening to kill him every second sentence and he was currently discussing critical military information with an enemy. Surely, he could give this creature a little benefit of the doubt as well.

“Grikith, did you find anything useful?” Matt asked with a careful thought.

“Something, these minds are simple but different. So very different. It will take time, but I can interfere with its thoughts. Interestingly unlike living beings it will not revert or heal from my touch. Any changes are permanent until they are intentionally changed back. I can see why your people use these things so much.” The demon was incredibly thoughtful as it pondered the task still attempting to work through the issues.

“How soon do you think you can manage something?” Matt felt anxious at the thought of arming yet more potential enemies with dangerous information, and weapons.

“On my own, it would take some time but she is especially talented at this, as you may have noticed young mind slave.” Grikith let out a gentle laugh as it spoke such strange words.

“Mind slave?” Matt felt a growing uncertainty from that thought, something that upset his stomach and brought bile to his throat.

“Do you think you would have offered her so much if you were truly yourself? Why do you truly think of her as one of your superiors? You already know it instinctively don’t you? If she wanted you to leap from a cliff or to shoot your closest friend, you wouldn’t be able to refuse.” The thoughts flowed in to him, but Matt was unsure whether he should trust them or not.

“I… I’ll consider the idea.” Matt hesitated to deny the thought when it fit the evidence a little too well. There may have been good reason that Lilith didn’t trust this demon.

“Maybe if we corner one of those drones we could make it run out of ammunition and capture it.” He overheard Cassielle talking about options.

“It would self-destruct the moment it couldn’t be recovered.” Matt replied after an anxious glance form Lilith, “Probably taking out a few of you with it.”

“Then… what if we get one on its own, dodge its attacks. It shouldn’t self-destruct then?” Cassielle was pacing back and forth, carving her footsteps into the wooden floorboards with heavy booted thumps.

She was throwing around ideas with the other women in the room, trying to find something that might work, but in the end, they relied upon Matt, as their technology expert, to give the opinion of whether it could function or not.

“So long as there is a way that it can escape then probably not.” He thought it over, “But it would likely record what you’re doing, so if you successfully manage to interfere with it, the system will know instantly. Not to mention the massive risk of getting hit.”

“Still better than being powerless.” She gently whispered mostly to herself.

“The problem would be keeping it interested without getting too much unfriendly attention. Normally a drone won’t stay in a fight that it isn’t winning without either retreating or sending for backup.” Matt tried his mind around the problem until a voice spoke up.

“Aren’t they supposed to be scouting the rift?” The voice was spoken from one of the many unfamiliar faces around him. A short young woman who seemed to be nervously tapping her hands against her knees as she sat. “What if we just messed with the border so that it watched us but didn’t turn it into a fight.”

Matt considered the idea for a little while, “I don’t know how they’re programmed, they might just kill you on sight, but it still sounds interesting so long as you don’t stick around for too long.”

Cassielle spoke up immediately, “We’ll try it, any other ideas?”

“Draw it out of range of support?” Another new voice joined the conversation.

“Not possible.” Matt immediately spoke, “If it’s mission is to protect the rift, it won’t leave the vicinity no matter what you do to it.”

“We’ll need to get dangerously close to them though, won’t we? I don’t know about anyone else but I can’t manage to indrikate anything further than a metre away.” The speaker was a tall woman with a firm build, her stama moving with a nervous twitching across her skin.

“I can sometimes manage five metres.” Another spoke up.

“Seven metres.”

“Barely two metres, but I don’t want to just give up.”

Matt looked over the crowd of anxious Knights as they faced an enemy far beyond their capability to handle. “There’ll be a way.”

They fell into silence, looking down at their hands as they thought.

“There’s a way.” The voice speaking to him was Grikith’s

He almost replied in with his words giving away his secret, “Tell me, I don’t need the suspense.”

“Ancient secrets, methods that were lost over time, even I don’t know the details, but the method exists. I know of a few magical tombs that detail the method.” Matt felt himself growing increasingly anxious at this demon’s ideas.

“And I suppose that these women would be unwilling to go along with that.” Matt tried to focus these thoughts into that one small shore in his mind so that Lilith didn’t notice.

“Perceptive. No, they would not.” Matt swore under his breath, this wasn’t going well but he recorded the idea in his mind alongside the other options. It wasn’t a very good option at the moment, it would have to get on the Knights bad side, but if there was something that worked he’d need it.

He let himself relax a little, “You’ll have to figure something out, unless you’re hiding another trick up your sleeve.”

A short silence permeated the room until Cassielle opened up, “These vehicles you mentioned, how can we counter them?”

“Should be the same as with the drones if you can figure out how to idrikate them, but that all depends on how much distance you can push out of your abilities.” He gestured at them all as they considered their abilities.

“A few metres, up to ten metres in the best conditions. That’s the best range we can manage.” Cassielle replied, thoughtfully.

“You won’t get that close to a vehicle, let alone a high-flying drone.” He continued, “The rift is still the only chance you have and even that is an unlikely possibility.”

Lilith spoke up this time, “We don’t usually directly interfere with wars, do we?”

Cassielle ignored this, asking Matt instead, “What do you think the system will do with this world?”

“Make this world part of itself. To make perfection.” He replied.

“Perfection?” Lilith uttered him disbelievingly.

“No-one starves, no wars, everyone alive has work to do and children are protected against the horrors of the world. No unintentional deaths.” He looked down at his own hands.

“Sounds too good to be true,” Lilith whispered.

“That’s because it comes at the price of freedom.” He replied, “No one chooses who they are, what they do or how they live. Even dying is decided by the system, suicide is almost impossible, but try it enough and you’ll be disposed of as mentally broken.”

They looked concerned as they stared into his distant eyes, his hands were clutching at the gemstone in his hair. Memories flowed through that gem as he concerned himself with the past that was long gone.

“By attacking this camp and us, Sasahara Knights, they have declared war on this entire realm, we will not allow them to persist in their domination over this land. We will stop them.” Her voice falling away to a whisper, “We must stop them.”

Lilith looked away from the sad look in her senior’s eyes, as the talk faded away. “Lilith,” Cassielle spoke her name, “practice with that device until you are perfect. We cannot allow ourselves to be weak any longer against these computers.”

She stood up and walked away, chasing after some of the other Knights while sprouting orders.