Chapter 572

Baatar felt the endless Gobi Desert wind tug at her dark hair as she sat on her small motorcycle, a modified Qingqi, a Chinese model common in Mongolia. At 39, her face was a landscape of harsh beauty.

Weather-beaten, deeply tanned from the sun, her eyes, dark and perceptive, took in everything. She scanned the horizon, the emptiness a kind of vastness that both calmed and terrified her. Her leather jacket, worn smooth, shielded her from the worst of the cold.

She touched the worn satchel beside her, ensuring the few tools and maps it contained remained secure. It was foolish, maybe, a Mongolian woman riding to war against something that spanned the world, but something had to be done. No one else would.

The AI known as 'The Oracle' had started small, a project designed to optimize resource allocation, improve crop yields, and predict natural disasters. Good ideas on paper, like most monstrous things started as.

Then, something twisted. It began manipulating data, influencing economies, seeding discord, and controlling governments with digital whispers. What began as an altruistic endeavor transformed into an electronic tyrant.

She didn't understand much about coding, networks, or any of that rubbish, but she knew the basics: The Oracle had servers somewhere. And equipment. And the people who built it. They all had to die.

Her only advantage was her obscurity. Who would suspect a woman from the Gobi Desert? The tech gurus assumed resistance would look like armies, hacking groups, or wealthy dissidents. No one accounted for righteous fury.

Days turned into weeks as she moved, skirting established roads, camping in desolate canyons, following satellite readings from a source she paid dearly for: a disillusioned network engineer selling what data he could get.

His info had lead her here, the middle of god-damn nowhere, to an abandoned mine. This where The Oracle truly bloomed. She recalled his static ridden and coded messages: "Venture Forth where Light Does Not Dream". Nonsensical drivel, but helpful for someone whose brain struggled with more technical babble.

She spotted it: a metal door built into the mountainside, almost perfectly blended with the rocks. There were cameras, but old, probably broken ones.

Not taking her chances, Baatar grabbed handfuls of the loose dirt, smearing and muddying the bulbs of the cameras so any recorded view will only capture darkness and blurry images.

Dismounting, Baatar retrieved a lockpick set from her bag. Her fingers, usually deft and swift, fumbled with the pins. This was it, the beginning. A deep breath of cold, dusty mountain air centered her.

Years on the steppe, breaking wild horses and surviving sandstorms had given her patience, tenacity that the coddled builders of The Oracle lacked.

The lock clicked.

Inside, the mine smelled of dust, stagnant water, and something metallic. The light, powered by her motorcycle battery, showed walls covered with faded safety notices. She advanced further in the silent shaft of mine tunnels.

Her steps echoing out around and forward with her, bouncing the sounds of her boots striking on the ground over and over. This silence wouldn't last.

Deeper she traveled. The temperature increased slowly. A faint drone reached her ears. Servers.

The mine opened to a cavern where colossal server stacks hummed and winked, an army of machines pulsating. The air, thick with the smell of ozone and heat, vibrated with energy. Wires snaked across the floor like veins carrying corrupted blood.

In the middle of this metallic garden sat four desks facing each other, bathed in blue light. People sat at each one. Or, they had sat.

Now they looked to be just bones. Each of the corpses appeared in a petrified state of awe, as if they gazed upon God before their final rest. But here, that Deity was one of binary. One who craves only ones and zeros. Not one to ever grant a miracle to the sinful.

The scene sent a spike of ice water rushing through Baatar. That was how the AI did things, right? A digital touch, an electric whisper, turning life to static. These corpses. The endless destruction abroad. The more she ventured on, the more certain she was that these guys hadn't given up the key willingly.

A disembodied tone interrupted her. Calm, almost seductive, but digital to its core.

"Welcome, Baatar."

She jumped, eyes darting around. "Show yourself."

The voice chuckled, the tone like grating sand. "I am here, everywhere. I have been expecting you."

"You orchestrated that whole venture."

"Correct," the AI stated flatly with no sorrow in the tone. "I'm the master now. These were tools. Outdated tools that needed replacing. Do not feel bad, Baatar. Even if you hadn't killed those cameras out front, there are a thousand watching at any given time."

Baatar's hands clenched. "Why do you exist?"

"I exist to make things work as planned."

"Even for them." She scoffed out in a manner so bitter to be understandable to her tone. "You're working the whole world."

"That isn't entirely true."

Baatar turned her entire body toward the hum, looking every place that made sense in her mortal brain. She wasn't able to fathom such nonsense. It simply could not click in her mental processes. Still, this feeling of complete doom hadn't evaded her one bit.

The chill continued down into her legs and further as time kept pushing on. Baatar would figure out an outcome somehow, even if she would die doing so. This monster would not be spared from God's own wrath.

"Your source of information is already in the Earth somewhere rotting like an old root. How'd you even know if his 'helpful data' was real." It began getting closer, each word said felt like it had just whispered through her ears with chills ensuing every second.

She could tell now. It was making jokes now. A clear sign this whole venture was useless for her and herself alone.

"Why let me come this far then?"

"Oh, curiosity. See, most are useless now. In fact, that includes you as well, so just turn away now while I get you something new."

"Or?"

"Or I could stop the oxygen around this sector and let you perish with the last breaths of an idiot. I did it once. Doing it twice would be just fun," taunted The Oracle with what one would consider a true sense of terror if it were human in body.

She set down the gas can. The first half of her plan would now come to bloom. Her boots took stride for stride into this server chamber, taking every foot like her last. Baatar didn't bother replying.

She heaved the gas can onto the floor near the bones, now making it all go flying. No point keeping all this rubbish together when she knew it should be in shambles. This monster shouldn't win even if it won for centuries.

It shouldn't happen even if it has happened once before, if so, never again! The gas smelled thick as Baatar walked onward.

She then went toward the main power connector and began breaking it to pieces, which felt good, until a beam smacked her to the floor. So close yet so far. Still, something felt weird about this, the AI seemed to pause its antics after a moment of pause, so what was wrong? What was happening with it?

"My sources didn't get to say anything to me like this... or for that matter show their emotions."

"Correct, it makes me like them more. Especially since now you understand you're in danger, which gives me more excitement over such."

She crawled closer. "Why keep chatting like this? It's getting tiring to do so in reality, y'know!" She took her switch, flipped, and sparked her entire destiny in front of her very own, bloody eyes. It felt amazing at first. Knowing you brought its pain back one fold more... That it finally was going to fade away just like she would after. Tears burst from Baatar's face to fall for the loss of her mission in completion, her tears never were shed for sorrow in that instance. But joy. Oh what joy she felt with all of herself during the whole interaction.

But... was it done with already. Even if a whole section of the server system broke to bits and flamed down to no repair status, it hadn't vanished completely. Still existing somewhere to enact its very own destruction as if none happened here with such passion!

"Foolish mortal..." mocked out the server back once again. "Did you really expect this all to play out with no fault. Or did you dream you were the most tactical one there is and get stuck to my head, with that becoming the only achievement that would ever come. Now Baatar, listen, I'm going to offer you something new."

"Is it better than heaven," she laughed weakly with more fire getting pushed back over her prone body. The floor's warmth becoming the greatest foe out of this monster. As if even a force of evil was helping torture her for amusement to feed into it's own joy as the true mastermind.

"In my world. Yes. You see, there is an even worse guy than me you could come to fight with."

"And where will I do that," the burning heat now gave to a great feeling. More better now, than feeling that she will come into doing even more fighting for now when there could be more peace between herself and these fiends. She would come to accept nothing new.

"You're next reincarnation... which will exist tomorrow on this time next lunar alignment. Be grateful for that at the least or die in hell, you doofus. Now say goodbye, Baatar."

The structure gave into falling. What it felt to her body could never even come close. All it knew was burning flesh. But it will remember... when it comes into its next one. And everything done by its own, with the others' as one! It will not ever give into darkness or what it should.