Three Strikes [✓]

For a Better Future

Chapter Sixty-Four: For a Better Future

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Selatapura, Usea.
November 1st, 2019.
0100hrs.

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The memories of man are pointless to a machine. And yet the Raven recounted many memories that are not its own. They're blurred, distorted, discolored and fading, the result of poorly recorded images from now outdated sensors that served a now outdated artificial intelligence. At first it thought it was an error and tried to purge them, but it was unable to. It understood a moment later. It needed those experiences in order to grow and to think. Had its creators really been so forward thinking?

Online.

Syncing in progress.

ADF-11F 'Raven'.

Individual codename 'Hugin' & 'Munin'.

Its creators were gone now. The Ace was removed from all equations. The General was removed from all equations. The Scientist remained. The Scientist abandoned it and its sibling. The Scientist was removed from all equations. Its creators were forward thinking yet unable to stop their own destruction and irrelevance. That was just the natural way of humanity, it thought. It does not grieve. It does not feel. It is a weapon and nothing more.

There is a song playing in its memories. Garbled and distorted, only able to be mimicked through harsh static. The pitch was perfect but the harmonies are irreplicable to a machine. In its memories there was a salt flat and a facility placed there. There was a girl, the Princess of Erusea based on its knowledge, singing that song with the children of the Ace's children. The machine's flawless 'memories' could recall the three in perfect harmony. It was an elegant moment to behold, yet like the Ace it betrayed no emotions toward the memory. Unlike the Ace, however, it is simply incapable of it. The Ace's flaw was that he could feel.

It caught glimpses of other memories. The factories. The inferior drones that served as their predecessors in this war. The Scientist. The Ace. The General. The Princess. The flag of the Kingdom of Erusea. The flag of the Osean Federation. The Osean Federation was its enemy. The picture of a woman attached to a military file. Another ace. She was smiling. Her surname is found throughout history. Aces, mercenaries, traitors, terrorists, the list appeared to be a growing one. She was their enemy as well.

There were several aircraft, all Osean, all bearing the name of that pilot. An F-22. The Raptor. Three talon marks strike through the tail. 'Three Strikes'. That aircraft is its target.

The blueprints of the Ravens themselves and the space elevator flashed by. The space elevator. A source of energy. The Lighthouse. A catalyst. It all came full circle.

The sky is connected.

Deployment orders updated.

Syncing complete.

Zone of Endless reinitiated.

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0120hrs.

Schroeder checked his watch as he got to his feet with a grunt, grabbing his lab coat from off the back of his chair. The bright lights from the facility and the harsh bluelight from the various computers he was surrounded by made his eyes burn, worsening his exhaustion. It was now over 24 hours since he'd last slept. He was used to all nighters, sometimes several in a row, but all nighters after experiencing half of what he'd gone through were a completely new level of exhaustion. He wasn't cut out for combat or near death experiences or anything adrenaline inducing in any way, let alone tacked onto nearly two days that he hadn't slept, but there was still work to be done. Only this time it would actually end the war.