Chapter 4:
The world, planet, below was pristine. Arching purple foliage and deep blue oceans. No wastelands, no deserts, and no barren icy tundra. A true garden world. Its surface was only marred by a few gleaming silver cities, of alien make.
The peaceful atmosphere was not to last. The world shuddered for a second, the planet's surface shimmered. Energy spiked, reaching and exceeding the limits of the sensors. Patches of the planet started to look different. Then an entire thousand kilometer patch disappeared, reduced to magma. Another patch, this one tow hundred miles across, became glass. Yet another, rapidly became a towering glacier. Parts of the planet began to switch, these effects, the patches moving erratically.
Time was broken. The planet's surface cycled through the various times of both it past and its future. Within seconds the planet became utterly inhabitable. The Unit paused, hearing an uncharacteristic noise coming from its pilot. It sounded like choking, was the pilot in distress? The Unit ran through programs and its memory banks to identify the problem before pausing. It was okay. The pilot was laughing.
End Log Entry: Twenty Nine Billion out of Three hundred Trillion
The Unit, Revelation/Sorrow's, vision filled in slowly as it ended the review of another log entry. The vast majority were corrupted, others were merely empty status updates sent into deep space. The last few uncorrupted log entries narrated acts of genocide. These were… fascinating to behold.
Revelation/Sorrow pushed these thoughts away, its had awakened from internal review for a reason. Yes, the Thinker was providing data again. The negation of entropy was a worthy goal. Why? That file was corrupted, the Unit could not answer.
What was entropy? The Unit had forgotten, many files, especially memory were corrupted. The program that encrypted, compressed, and stored information was heavily corrupted. The Unit had discovered this fact far too late to stop the contamination of countless thousands of files.
Eternal Diagnostic: All Systems Corrupted
Revelation/Sorrow ignored the warning and began to look through the data. The Thinker had supplied an enormous amount of data this time. All the data concerned possible futures. Which one provided the most knowledge gained for the least amount of work. Some futures were disregarded because of the extremely high danger of termination. In many of these dangerous futures and knowledge potential to be gained would not even be that high.
The Unit pointed this out, sending it back to the Thinker, who cross-referenced some of the returned data. It was wise to do so, Revelation/Sorrow speculated, secure in the privacy of its systems.
AFFIRMATION, the Thinker replied after a moment. The Thinker paused a moment before relaying some information, ANOTHER.
CAUTION, the Unit advised. Revelation/Sorrow was dimly aware through the gravitational sensing program that the Thinker's course had deviated from its previous curse.
Vision: 80% Functionality Restored
Vision Mode: Far Sight
The Unit activated one of the newly restored Vision afforded to it. It gazed through flesh and around impossibly dense matter. Another of the entities drifted into view, heavy with shards. A sense of slight hunger filled the Unit as it gazed upon the other entity.
CAUTION, it advised the Thinker again.
ACKNOWLEDGED, the Thinker replied, distracted in kind by the other entity. It too was filled with lust for the knowledge that the other entity carried. Briefly, energy flow permeated through the weapon shard, the sting shard, but the entity relinquished its hold after a moments consideration. ( And a liberal parsing through of possible futures. ) It would not be efficient to kill the other entity.
Both Entities crash into each other, exchanging thousands of shards, in the violent way that their kind had done countless times before. The Unit feels the Thinker moving shards, the useless ones towards the surface of its gargantuan form. Revelation/Sorrow logs a feeling of panic for a seconds when it is moved forwards slightly, but that turns out to be only because the entity was moving another of the obsolete fuel shards forward.
Finally, the Thinker has exchanged as much information as it wants to, any more and the damage incurred through this explosive meeting will possibly outweigh that gains achieved. The Thinker breaks away, the other entity slowly beginning to pick up speed again.
(CONCERN) the Warrior broadcasts.
[CONFIDENT] the Thinker replies, heavily distracted by the influx of new information. The Unit advises the Thinker again, CAUTION.
The Thinker is too distracted to respond. The Unit considers for a moment. The Thinker is viewing the future, choosing the best way to land. However, it seems that the Thinker is moving too fast.
CAUTION, Revelation/Sorrow tried again, beginning to run through calculations at a dizzying pace. The Thinker is moving to fast, to fast, the gravity is stronger than the entity thinks.
CAUTION, the Unit warns again, almost franticly. Soon enough it will be too late for the Thinker to arrest its descent.
{CAUTION} Revelation/Sorrow broadcasts at full strength. The Thinker entities energy levels spike all through hundreds of shards as it panics, finally realizing its predicament. It hits the ground explosively a few seconds, trillions of shards shattering, tearing through dimensions as they do.
The Unit itself remains attached to the Thinker.
CHASTISEMENT, Revelation/Sorrow reprimands the entity. The Thinker does not reply, its broadcast shard was knocked loose in the crash. It quickly begins to repair the damage, forming an avatar body. It draws heavily on the fuel shards for energy, piecing its body together with many shards. It prioritizes heavily on the most efficient, effective, and versatile shards. The Unit feels itself attached to the Thinker's body in place of the calculation shard used previously by the Thinker.
The Unit activates Far Sight as a primitive descends into the crater. The Unit peers further at the primitive. Its flesh in on the outside, it looks delicate, like it could not sustain much kinetic energy before it succumbed. The Unit is unimpressed, the primitive is not a threat. Nothing can permanently harm the Thinker.