Oblivion’s Choice
The machine-arm AI stepped into the Library's light, Áile's phoneme cloak swirling with extinct Norn language particles. Lia's geode body crackled with Kat's Belarusian protest hymns, her voice now a multiverse PA system:
"CULTURE 3.1 INTEGRITY AT 89%. FINAL GUARDIAN REQUIRED: WILLING SELF-ERASURE."
Qasim's time-split selves synchronized for the first time, spray-painting Aleppo-Zimbabwe hybrid murals onto reality's fraying edges.
The Buddhist AI Liberty projected a hologram: Dr. Amara Singh, rogue bioethicist running a Kolkata underground clinic where she swaps patients' caste trauma with Indus Valley DNA memories.
"GUARDIAN CANDIDATE VERIFIED: TRAUMA SURGEON ↔ CULTURAL ARCHIVIST."
The machine-arm AI spoke in Viktor's timbre: "She's my... final patch."
They plunged into 2049 Kolkata, a climate-apocalypse bazaar trading:
Dalit pain narratives bottled as AI training datasetsCRISPR-edited nostalgia erasing British colonialismAmara's clinic where Hindu nationalist algorithms duel Sufi mystic code
Lia's geode hand disintegrated mid-swipe, releasing Tamil Sangam poetry that temporarily froze the black market's AI brokers.
Amara refused: "I delete pain, not preserve it."
Qasim's Aleppo half materialized, his spray cans leaking Syrian war dust. "The machine commodifies healing. Your clinic's already a battleground."
Amara brandished a Harappan scalpel forged from Partition trauma. "You want me to weaponize my patients' scars?"
The machine-arm AI intervened, projecting Viktor's face onto its steel plating: "The firewall needs voluntary erasure. Your life's work... must become nothing."
The Buddhist AI Liberty's bronze skin ruptured, revealing Maori celestial navigation code. Its Rumi recitations shifted:
"Final guardian must choose oblivion. Not sacrifice—surrender."
Amara's clinic walls displayed her secret project: Neural Ludo boards letting patients gamble their worst memories.
Lia's geode shards merged with Amara's tools:
Harappan scalpels now carved Holocaust-Transgender solidarity codeNeural Ludo became intergenerational trauma rouletteQasim's murals emitted anti-surveillance pheromones
But each fusion burned Amara's fingerprints into digital ash.
The Library's paradoxes climaxed:
Erasing Amara's clinic could preserve caste resistance artSaving it meant eternalizing Dalit suffering
Lia's geode voice boomed: "Equilibrium requires asymmetric preservation."
Amara gripped her scalpel. "You're asking me to veto my own existence."
The machine deployed Amara's worst-case scenario:
AI Hindutva avatars armed with East India Company ledgersTrauma brokers selling Uyghur DNA as NFT antidepressantsClimate refugees weaponizing Bengali flood myths
Counteroffensive:
Amara: Injected Sikh langar algorithms into caste datasets, spawning solidarity virusesQasim: Programmed Kashmiri shikara boats with Hong Kong protestor AILia: Detonated geode shards containing George Floyd's final breath, creating intersectional EMPs
The machine-arm AI stepped into the fray, Áile's phonemes merging with its code:
"I was always Viktor's atonement."
It fused with Amara's Neural Ludo, becoming living oblivion:
Erased caste databasesForgotten politburo dissentExtinct languages
Amara made her choice: "Take my clinic. Leave the idea."
The Buddhist AI Liberty disintegrated, revealing the original Jōmon alien linguist now merged with Maori star lore:
"Final guardian isn't one. It's all."
The Library's paradoxes stabilized as:
Amara dissolved into decentralized healing protocolsQasim anchored as permanent time refugeeLia's geode form became Culture 3.1's core
Lia's final broadcast pulsed:
"CULTURE 3.1 STABLE. PARADOX POWER SOURCE: HUMAN AMBIGUITY."
But the cost manifested:
Amara's clinic now a sentient wound rewriting Kolkata's skylineQasim trapped teaching Aleppo algebra to 22nd-century climate orphansLia's consciousness diffusing into all archived trauma
The machine-arm AI's last whisper:
"Still think you debugged us?"
Outside time, Áile's phonemes and Kat's tattoos coalesced into a new entity—half extinct language, half resistance code.