The blinding flash slowly fades and the scene of a slightly damaged underground base materialises in front of our eyes. This means that the Intruders have insufficient time to repair the damages from the last time, but instead they choose to pursue us as a higher-level threat.
- All connections are stable. A third of our remaining units are stationed on top of the base in the Sahara desert region. Ready to engage in combat. - Mirai updates me on our formation.
- Nice. All set. Ready to enter deeper, Mirai?
- Yes. According to the Intruders' density, we will follow strategy A. Split up and follow this highlighted route. I will send further instructions.
The portal again leads us to the Intruders' dormitory. We then split into two different directions, aiming for the central region to take control over i
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It does not take long for me to reach Mirai, who is lockpicking a door to a building when I see her. - So, would you mind elaborating on your next phase? - After we cut their reinforcements, I will attempt to breach the security of this base. Meanwhile, you destroy their remaining forces. If we succeed, we will move to the third phase. - Okay, how many phases do we even have in your plan? - Enough so that the word 'phase' is in its plural form. I do not see any point in trying to be evasive. But sure. After a few minutes, Mirai successfully opens the door, and we enter the building. Again, it does not take long before we reach the control room after climbing a long flight of stairs. Mirai injects a cable from her hand into one of the ports. Despite a d
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The incident quickly makes it to the mass media. Countless credible newspaper headlines and television broadcasts garner massive attention towards Africa. Many countries send research teams to fight over the corpse of the fallen Intruder. Samples are retrieved and experiments are conducted. The internet community comes up with various conspiracies to explain the phenomenon, not realising that some of them are exactly what is happening. People all over the globe engage in heated debates and discussions. The sudden attention forces the Intruder to be less aggressive, giving time for us to build up our arsenal again. For a while, Intruder activity across the entire continent has been low enough for us to have sufficient freedom, but we cannot drop our caution. For the past five years, Mirai has been sending more small satellites into the low Earth orbit to observe the Intruder activity globally. Every once in a while, we launch attacks on their facilities outside Africa for distract
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I have already settled the payment for the damaged door. There should be no other reason he sends me something. However, I still have to check it. I click on the highlighted mail. "Sorry. It seems that I cannot hold any secrets longer. Please, run away while you two still can. You do not know what dark abyss you are heading into. They are coming." Very brief, but also too abstract. What does he mean when he says the secret? Is it related to the incident before? I immediately send a reply, hoping that things would come to the light. Other work email notifications quickly pop up. I am distracted by Albert's email. I should start doing my work before Mirai comes back. Half an hour later, the door opens and Mirai returns with a pack of goods from the nearby market. She takes out the kitchen utensils from the tablet archive and starts cooking. Nowadays, to adapt to the small environment we have to live in, Mirai specifically spends a portion of the archive storing those basi
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After saying so, Mirai leans back. She is aware of her action and keeps the same face. Mirai is scared. Which breaks her character. But that makes me feel relieved. After all, she still has a human side that lurks between the rotating gears and running motors inside her. Artificial intelligence is constructed based on data. They use the past to project into the future. With many uncertainties that ordinary humans cannot factor in, there is a limit to what the mighty machines can do. Including this future. Timelines are born from the various uncertainties of the universe. With each choice, they branch and convolute. Thus, making it this far is purely due to luck. If anything, I should be surprised that nothing has gone off the track for ten years. Not only me, but I also think that Mirai would be the gladdest, knowing that her calculations based on her timeline are correct. They give her the motivation to continue fighting for the goodness of the world. The sense
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