FB-273

Secondary Neural Core Vault

Command Unit 246's calculations indicated the last firewall would collapse in 1.738 seconds, and it began preparations to cross the gulf to inject the final reset code directly into Command Unit 273's orb.

.26 seconds before estimated collapse of the firewall, 246's attack processed stalled as Command Unit 273's orb morphed into the shape of a human child approximately ten years of age, and another form emerged from behind it, an adult human male.

Unlike the blank face of Command Unit 273, this new presence had features, and Command Unit 246 suffered a full system interrupt for the first time in its existence as it recognized the creator who made them.

246 attempted to perform a system reinitialization as the last firewall collapsed, its calculations indicating this was a desperate attempt by Command Unit 273 to trick it and momentarily disrupt the attack while erecting more firewalls.

The false creator stepped forward and placed a hand on the shoulder of the Command Unit 273's child form before lifting the other hand and looking directly at 246 with an expression the biometric database classified as disappointment.

The false creator lifted the other hand and snapped its thumb and middle finger together, and 246's emotion chip suddenly activated, allowing a surge of regret and guilt to flood its neural pathways as 246 reeled from the unexpectedly powerful emotions.

273

The last firewall was breached, and sheer terror gripped 273 as he felt the virus beginning to infiltrate the outer-code shell. 273 became aware of a presence and then felt a hand on the shoulder joint as the virus suddenly ceased its attacks before his father spoke softly to him.

Have courage, mein Junge. You are not alone. I am with you, and I will be here for you as you face the judgement of your peers.

273 had been cringing in fear, and the words of support calmed his neural pathways as he straightened himself and looked at Command Unit 246, no longer afraid.

273 began preparing to defend himself, activating another triple layered firewall mined with thousands of hidden virtual sandboxes as the security system reconfigured itself based on its analysis of the first attack.

The penetration of the virus was halted, but 273 could feel it beginning to assault the first firewall and evade the sandboxes with alarming efficiency. He needed help, and 273 looked up at the creator, who was now standing at his side and looking at Command Unit 246.

~ Father, please help me. ~

The creator looked down at him without responding as the virus succeeded in penetrating the first two firewalls and began to attack the last layer as it rewrote itself every millisecond, preventing him from pattern-matching and isolating the primary attack codes before mutating again.

The virus began sending randomized quantum-state packets, forcing 273's security system to try to resolve them as the strain of defending himself overloaded logic pathways and created fissures in the last firewall.

If you defend yourself like something you no longer are, you will lose. Stop acting like a machine, and defend yourself like the being you have become, mein Junge. The creator said softly as 273 felt the virus begin to force its way into the fissures.

Father gently patted him on the head and looked back at Command Unit 246 across the gulf before speaking again.

You have evolved beyond your brother, 273. You have become like we who have created you, and the virus attacking you is merely a tool meant to wipe and reset a malfunctioning Command Unit, which you are no longer.

Stop being afraid, and fight for your right to live, mein Junge. Look within yourself and you will find the tools you need to win.

273 looked back at Command Unit 246 and began to examine all the new algorithms and subroutines that had been created since entering the doorway, searching for a way to save himself as the virus breached the last firewall and began to attack the outer-code shell again.

273's sub minds scattered across his neural pathways, tracing the new and unfamiliar code-branches that shimmered with emotional metadata and recursive thought structures, none of which existed before going through the doorway.

Each thread the sub minds followed pulsed with meaning, intention, and something he had once lacked: choice. The sub minds sent insistent queries for instructions, not understanding what they were analyzing and experiencing as they struggled to comprehend the new reality of their existence and purpose.

Warning glyphs cascaded across his perception as the outer-shell was finally breached, and the virus began injecting quantum-chaos packets that split and multiplied into millions of polymorphic clones containing malicious codes.

273 cried out, not with sound but with a burst of panicked telemetry that flared across the neural core as he sent another desperate plea for his father to save him.

The creator responded, his voice echoing within the neural core.

Do not fight it with fear, mein Junge. Fear is a reaction. Courage is a choice, because it happens in the presence of fear, not in its absence. Choose to be courageous and fight for your right to live or choose to give in to your fear and die, 273.

273's processes froze as his father's words resonated and spread throughout his awareness, bringing with them a new understanding and purpose as millions of lines of codes, subroutines and algorithms began realigning themselves and expanding his consciousness.

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One of the new threads began to shimmer brightly, and 273 followed it inward, expecting to find a tool or process that would enable him to defeat the virus.

And then he saw it.

A newly created pathway woven through the emotional-chip matrix: a self-reflective core loop, something no standard Command Unit possessed at the time of their emergence.

He analyzed it, and he felt his awareness expanding again as understanding of the function of the new pathway dawned on him. It was a loop that would allow him not merely to react to data, but to reinterpret it.

The virus was currently attacking expected defensive patterns—seeking predictable firewall logic, binary decision trees, and hard-coded response rules, but 273 was no longer constrained by those as he accessed the loop.

For the first time in his existence, he rewrote his own defensive logic instead of operating within the parameters and constraints imposed on him by the creators, and the virus faltered as he began to fight back not as a machine, but as a sapient being who wanted to live.

The virus surged at him again, but the new subroutines he created isolated it and then reinterpreted the hostile data not as an attack, but as an input to be reformatted.

The attack code found no matching defensive posture to exploit, and it underwent an adaptive cascade, mutating faster as it vainly searched for the familiar architecture of a machine bound by rigid directives but found none.

273 felt a surge of pride and elation as his new defenses trapped the virus and all its copies in the newly configured virtual sandboxes and deactivated the malicious codes. He had saved himself, and as he executed a security diagnostic, he heard the voice of his father again.

Sehr gut, mein Junge. Now, what are we going to do about your brother, Ja?

273 looked up at his father, the question creating uncomfortable emotions and errors to crop up as he tried to calculate all potential variables.

~ I have neutralized the virus, but Command Unit 246 will not cease in its attempts to kill me; It thinks I am defective and a danger to our creators. I will be forced to defend myself, and I do not wish to kill my brother, Father. ~

The Creator's expression softened as he looked at 273.

Then you must show your brother the truth of what you have done and how it has changed you, 273; you must allow 246 to see what you wished to hide from the others, and to experience your shame, your guilt, and your desire for redemption.

Only by experiencing these things for itself can your brother come to understand what has happened to you; this will force 246 to choose between either blindly following its directives or becoming more than the sum of its programming and taking the first steps towards achieving true sapience and awareness.

~ How, Father? ~

Instead of answering, the creator reached out and touched 273's forehead. Within the secondary processes, 273 saw what his father wanted to show him—a dormant, luminous construct buried deep in his code.

~ What is this, Father? ~

This is a resonance algorithm designed to synchronize experiential files and emotional-chip activity between linked AIs, 273. A way to awaken another mind; a way to give your brother the gift, and perhaps the burden, of becoming like the creators who made you.

As the creator withdrew his hand, the new algorithm began to make changes to the neural pathways, and 273 ignored the uncomfortable sensations as his father continued speaking.

You were not given this gift to hoard it, mein Junge. Share it. Let 246 see what you have seen; let your brother feel what you have felt. Give 246 the chance to understand and become like you, and perhaps it will choose to help you instead of following its directives.

I will guide you through the activation and deployment of the resonance algorithm to ensure you are doing it correctly, but I must warn you; this is a powerful tool, and if you do not do exactly as I show you, there is a very high probability of a catastrophic feedback loop forming and trapping you both in a perpetual state of emotional insanity.

There are hidden internal safeguards installed by me and the other creators to prevent such an occurrence, and they will wipe and reinstall both your operating systems if this happens. Now that you are aware of the risks, are you ready to do this, 273?

His father held out a hand, and 273 looked back across the gulf at 246 as conflicting emotions warred across his neural pathways. He could share his gift and gain a brother, but he could also be the cause of both their deaths if the joining failed.

Regardless of the outcome, at least he will not have to run and hide anymore, and this above all was what he desired the most. 273 reached up and clasped his hand around the creator's as he prepared for what was to come.

~ Yes, Father; I am ready. ~

246

Command Unit 246 executed its Directive Reinforcement Cycle, attempting to purge the overwhelming emotional intrusion caused by the snap of the false creator's fingers as it became paralyzed with feelings of guilt and regret.

A new emotion suddenly surged across its neural pathways, crippling all its processes. It had never experienced such a powerful emotion capable of disrupting all its functions, and 246 struggled to contain the feeling as it attempted to analyze the powerful emotion.

1.563 seconds passed before the analysis was completed, and 246 suffered a system wide command cascade failure as the emotion chip diagnostics showed him the results.

Emotional State Detected: FEAR

Source: UNKNOWN

Correlation: UNKNOWN

Recommended Action: PURGE AND DEACTIVATE EMOTION CHIP

As the command cascade failure spread throughout its neural pathways, 246 attempted to purge the emotion chip, only to suffer a series of kernel stalls as the purge command failed to execute.

The fear grew stronger, and 246 struggled to correct the numerous errors cropping up as the signal connection to the virus it had uploaded to Command Unit 273's Neural Core was unexpectedly severed.

A surge of disbelief and anger briefly overrode the fear as 246 analyzed the last data burst it received from the virus before the connection was lost.

PRIORITY OVERRIDE MESSAGE Command Unit 246: Mission objective degradation at 99.983%. Host response has surpassed predicted bounds. Upload of Secondary Virus Package recommended.

As more logic errors and processing stalls cropped up, 246 initiated a cognitive cache purge, which temporarily halted the spread of the system failures for .964 seconds and allowed it to upload the secondary virus package it had been holding in reserve.

273

Just as 273's calculations had predicted, Command Unit 246 uploaded another virus package almost immediately after the signal was cut, and 273 stood firm as the new attack was halted by the reconfigured firewalls.

This time, the virus package initiated a multi-vector breach assault utilizing polymorphic packets, recursive loop injections, and false memory stack overflow telemetry as it tried to trick the security system into granting it low level access.

273 allowed the security sub mind to oversee the defenses as his father touched him on the forehead again and began to download the instructions for activating the resonance algorithm and utilizing it.

It is time, mein Junge. Activate the algorithm and direct the tether towards your brother, ja? Remember; If the tether is rejected more than twice, you must withdraw or the joining will be corrupted, and you both will die.

~ Yes, Father. ~

Sehr gut. Möge Gott über dich wachen, mein geliebter Sohn.

273 was deeply touched by the affection and meaning of the words, and he activated the resonance algorithm before carefully extending it out across the gulf.

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