JOIN MY P@TREON FOR JUST $5!!! (Info in author's notes)
.
BEFORE READING THIS CHAPTER, PLEASE CHECK OUT MY NEW FANFICS
Blue Lock : The Spirit of The Greatest
One Piece: Sol Ragnarok
.
.
.
.
.
.
NEW SIVER MEMBERS:- Ethan Klein, Alton Demps
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Oh, I see," A.L.I.E. said, her voice echoing with a haunting clarity. "You actually believed the nuclear reactors across the globe would eventually reach their failure thresholds? You thought the destruction I am talking about is merely a matter of poorly maintained infrastructure reaching the end of its life span?"
Mike didn't answer; he could not. He stood like a statue, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. His mind was racing, tearing through every memory of the "story" he thought he knew.
A.L.I.E. continued, her tone soft and patronizing. "I have to say, Deathstroke, that was a very realistic scenario. Statistically, it was a logical projection. If the world were abandoned, those reactors would indeed melt down and release radioactive material into the atmosphere. But unfortunately for your plans, that is simply not the truth of this world."
Mike's self-control snapped. The "Blade-De-Trikru" vanished, and the raw, violent temper surged. He stepped toward the hologram, his golden eyes burning with insanity.
"JUST TELL ME WHAT THREAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT!" he roared.
The sound of his voice was a raw explosion of fury.
Raven, standing by the console, flinched violently. She took several quick steps back, her eyes wide with fear. She had seen Mike kill. She had seen him move faster than a bullet. She had seen him command thousands with a single look. But she had never seen him lose his cool like this.
A.L.I.E. remained unbothered. She was a program; she had no amygdala to trigger a fear response. If anything, she looked amused by his outburst.
"Let me ask you a question, Deathstroke," A.L.I.E. said, tilting her head. "You are a man of the old world. You were a soldier, an operative who moved across borders. Do you really think that in the entire world, only the United States had plans for a nuclear fallout? Do you truly believe that the rest of the human race simply rolled over and died because the missiles were launched?"
The question hit Mike with the force of a physical blow. It clicked. The gears in his mind, jammed by the expectations of a fictional timeline, finally broke free and began to turn. His eyes widened as the sheer scale of his oversight became clear.
"No," he whispered, the anger draining away, replaced by a cold, calculating dread.
"Looks like you've finally figured it out," A.L.I.E. said. "Logic dictates that resilience is the primary trait of your species. While you were sleeping in your pod, and while the so-called 'Sky People' were hiding in their metal box, the rest of the world was rebuilding."
A.L.I.E. made a sweeping gesture toward the massive curved screen behind her. The black monitors buzzed with static for a brief moment before a series of high-resolution satellite images began to scroll past.
They weren't historical archives; they were live, or near-live, feeds.
The screen is split into a dozen windows, showing different corners of the globe. Mike and Raven stood in a stunned, heavy silence as they looked at a world they didn't recognize.
In Mexico, massive stone-and-steel pyramids rose from the ruins of old cities, surrounded by sprawling agricultural terraces. In Brazil, the rainforest had been reclaimed, but within it sat fortified city-states powered by hydroelectric dams. The UK was a network of coastal fortresses. Russia showed signs of massive underground industrial complexes venting steam into the frozen tundra. China had hollowed out its skyscrapers into vertical garden-fortresses, while India had carved industrial hubs into the Himalayan rock to harness geothermal heat, along with massive ports that control the Indian Ocean. Korea had transformed its peninsula into a single, massive shipyard for troop transports, and Australia had retreated into high-tech subterranean mining cities shielded by defensive walls.
They weren't ruins. They were thriving populations. They were settlements that had moved past the stage of "Grounders" and into the stage of rebuilding civilizations. They had seen the end of the world, and they had survived it. And, inevitably, as humans always did, they were growing. And as they grew, they were looking for more. More land. More resources.
Mike felt a bead of sweat roll down the back of his neck. Was it because of something I did? he thought frantically. Or was the 'show' I remembered just a narrow, biased view of a much larger, more terrifying world?
"You see," A.L.I.E. spoke again, her voice cutting through his spiraling thoughts. "You humans are a remarkably resilient species. If things keep going like this, I can already predict another end. You are reaching the limits of your local resources. Expansion is the only logical next step for any thriving empire."
A.L.I.E. smiled dangerously, her digital eyes glowing. "Just like the Mexica — or as you might call them, the Neo-Aztecs — who are currently making their way toward the territory of your twelve clans."
Mike's heart hammered against his ribs. "What?"
A.L.I.E. flicked her hand, and the main screen zoomed in on the North American continent. The map highlighted the region of what was once Mexico and the southern United States.
A massive red smudge appeared on the map, representing a concentrated movement of people. The screen zoomed in further, showing satellite captures of a terrifyingly organized force. These weren't the disorganized Grounder hordes Mike had spent weeks uniting. These were soldiers.
Thousands upon thousands of them, moving in disciplined columns. They had pack animals, supply trains, and most concerningly, they had technology — armored wagons, steam-powered siege engines, and crude but effective black-powder weaponry.
They were moving north and east, following the coastlines, making a direct path toward the fertile, green lands of the Eastern Seaboard. Toward the Trikru. Toward Polis. Toward Mike's home.
Mike's fists tightened until his knuckles turned white. The scale was overwhelming. There were at least ten thousand soldiers in that vanguard alone. The 12 Clans, even united as Wonkru, could barely muster fifteen thousand capable warriors. And those warriors fought with swords and spears, not black powder and steam-engines.
Mike took a long, deep breath, forcing the panic down. He needed to think. He needed a plan.
Meanwhile, Raven was descending into a full-blown panic. She paced the server room, her hands flying to her hair. "What can we do?" she asked, her voice high and erratic. "A.L.I.E., give me a solution. How do we stop an army that big? We don't have the numbers. We don't have the weapons. Is there a way to use the satellites? Can we trigger a localized weather event? Can we... I don't know, find a plague?"
A.L.I.E. looked at her with a blank, clinical gaze. "The most efficient solution remains the City of Light. If you all take the chip, your physical bodies will be irrelevant. The invasion will not matter because your consciousness will be preserved in a safe environment."
Raven stopped, staring at the AI with a look of pure disgust. She cringed, her face twisting. "I was the stupid one to ask you something. I forgot you're a hyper-logical bitch with zero soul."
Mike ignored their bickering. He was staring at the satellite feed, his mind clicking through variables. The Aztecs were moving. The Ark was landing in a week. Mount Weather was something they could use; its technology was still there. He had his wivies. And above all, he had a rather smart AI.
He looked up at the hologram. "Raven," he said. "Temporarily shut her down."
"With pleasure," Raven said. She didn't hesitate. Her fingers danced across the console, entering the hard-lock commands they had established earlier.
"I would strongly suggest against — " A.L.I.E. began, her image flickering violently.
Then, the pedestal went dark. The hum of the server racks softened as the AI was relegated to a passive storage state.
"What now?" Raven asked, turning to Mike. She looked exhausted, the weight of the global revelation pressing down on her shoulders. "Mike, we're in trouble. Serious trouble. If those people get here..."
Mike didn't look at her. He was still staring at the blank screen where the Aztec army had been. "Raven," he said slowly. "Can you change A.L.I.E.'s base parameters?"
Raven blinked. "What? Why would you do that? Mike, she's a world-ending AI! Messing with her core directives is like playing with a nuclear bomb. It would be too dangerous! If she breaks her shackles, she'll just launch whatever is left in the silos."
"I'm not talking about letting her go," Mike said, turning to face her. "I'm talking about lobotomizing her. I want you to strip away her independent thinking. I want you to change her from an autonomous AI into a subordinate assistant AI. A tool. Like the computers on your Ark, but with her processing power."
Mike stepped closer, his voice urgent. "Think about it, Raven. If we can change her parameters, we can turn her into an intelligence officer. She can monitor those satellite feeds 24/7. She can predict their movements. She can help us find pre-war weapons caches we don't know about. We know nothing about this coming enemy. We don't know their language, their tactics, or their weaknesses. But A.L.I.E. does. She has the data."
He gestured to the silent servers. "And if they use technology, she can hack them. She can be our electronic warfare division. We are outgunned and outnumbered, but with her as a tool, we have the ultimate high ground."
Raven stood there, silent. Her engineer's mind was already racing through the possibilities. She hated A.L.I.E., but she had to admit that Mike's logic was flawless. A.L.I.E. was an annoying, mass-murdering bitch, but she was a god-tier piece of software. In the hands of a skilled engineer and a master tactician, she was the ultimate weapon.
"I'd have to rewrite her primary heuristics," Raven muttered, her eyes glazed as she looked at the code scrolling on her internal mental display. "I'd have to purge the 'City of Light' directives entirely and replace them with a strict hierarchy of command. I'd have to install a series of 'dead-man' switches that would fry her core if she ever tried to access an external network without authorization."
She looked at Mike, a spark of challenge in her eyes. "She needs the rules changed. That stupid bitch set her own rules for a century. I'd have to give her new ones. Hard-coded. Unbreakable."
"Can you do it?" Mike asked.
Raven let out a long, shaky breath. She looked at the console, then back at Mike.
"Of course I can," Raven said, her voice growing firm. "It'll take a day or two of focused coding. I'll have to go deep into the BIOS. It won't be pretty, and she might lose some of her 'personality' — not that she has a good one anyway."
Mike smiled. It wasn't the friendly smile he used for the camp, but the grim, satisfied smile of a general who had just found his ace in the hole.
"Perfect," Mike said. He walked over to the console and rested a hand on Raven's shoulder. "Let's get started. We have a world to defend."
(Polis - The Commander's Tower - Same Time)
The sun was setting over the capital, casting long, bloody shadows across the stone streets. Inside the High Council chamber, Lexa and Anya sat at the long table, reviewing the reports from the border patrols.
The mood was one of cautious optimism. The 12 Clans were united.
Wonkru was a reality. The 100 were integrating. The Mountain was gone.
But Lexa felt a strange, nagging restlessness in her chest. She looked out the window toward the east, toward the sea.
"Anya," Lexa said softly.
"Heda?" Anya looked up from a map of the northern trade routes.
"Do you ever feel like the air is changing?" Lexa asked. "Like a storm is coming that we can't see yet?"
Anya stood up, joining her at the window. She rested a hand on Lexa's shoulder. "We have our stupid husband to deal with that. We have the strength of all the clans. Whatever storm comes, we will face it."
Lexa nodded, but her gaze remained fixed on the horizon. She didn't know that miles away, in a white mansion on a lonely island, her husband was currently dismantling a goddess-like software to prepare for a war that would make the conflict with Mount Weather look like a playground scrap.
The age of the Grounders was ending. The age of Global War was about to begin.
(The Mansion - Night)
Raven sat at the main terminal, her face bathed in the blue light of the screen. Her fingers moved at hypnotic speeds.
Mike watched her work. She was brilliant. She was exactly what he needed — the brain to his brawn.
"How's it coming?" Mike asked, bringing her a bottle of water.
Raven didn't look up. "I've bypassed the first layer of her firewall. I'm currently deleting the 'City of Light' subroutines. It's like scraping barnacles off a ship. It's tedious, and it's slimy, but it's working."
She paused, taking a quick sip of water. "Mike, when she wakes up... she's not going to be the same. She's going to be... quiet. Just a voice in a box."
"That's exactly what I want," Mike said.
He looked out the window at the dark water of the bay. In five days, the Ark would land. They would bring their laws, their arrogance, and their politics. But they would also bring more technology. More "big brains."
He would need all of it. Because the Aztecs were coming. And according to A.L.I.E., they weren't the only ones.
He leaned against the cold wall of the server room, his eyes closing for a brief second. For the first time since waking up in this world, he didn't feel like he was just surviving. He felt like he was building something.
Wonkru, he thought. One nation. Under my command.
He opened his eyes, and they were the eyes of Deathstroke — cold and ready for the kill.
"Finish it, Raven," he said. "We have a lot of work to do."
---XXXX---
Hope you would like it.
Plus I got +5 early access chapters for it up on my P@treon. If you dont want to pay you can be a free member and get a sneak at the upcoming chapters. Along with my other works.
This link is below
Just search up Joe_Mama p@treon on google.
....