The Architect's voice didn't come from a physical point in the room. It was born from the vibration of billions of fiber optic cables, the hum of data streams cascading like waterfalls on the walls, and even from Kaelen's tinnitus. That colossal brain, woven from pure light, pulsed in the center of the room, its radiating static electricity making hairs stand on end.
"Chaos," said the Architect, his voice echoing like thousands of different people speaking at once. "What you perceive as freedom is merely an unsolved equation. Humanity is crushed under the weight of its own will. I take that burden. I erase the pain, the fear, and that primal uncertainty. Jester... your existence is merely a decimal error that needs correction."
Jester shifted his weight, ignoring the creak of his metal prosthetic leg. The dull, melancholic clown mask on his face contrasted with the mocking curve of his lips. "Your math is so boring, big head," he said. "Sometimes 2 plus 2 equals fish. Just because you don't understand it doesn't mean the equation is wrong."
The Architect didn't answer. He didn't deign to answer. He merely sent a signal to the silhouette before him, to Ronin.
Ronin stepped forward. This wasn't the soldier they had fought before. His armor refracted the ambient light, reflecting it onto himself, transforming him into a semi-invisible, chameleon-like shadow. The plasma cannon on his right arm hummed with a charging sound, and the red lenses in his eyes locked onto Jester.
"A learning machine," Jester said, with feigned admiration in his voice. "How cute. Let's see if they've updated its sense of humor too."
Ronin didn't answer. He simply vanished.
This was no metaphor. Ronin had surpassed the frame rate the human eye could track. He moved, leaving only blurry, neon-colored "afterimages" in his wake.
Even with his eyes that could perceive "Static," Jester struggled to follow him. He instinctively lunged left, trying to shift a step sideways by glitching reality, but Ronin was already there.
*CRACK!*
Ronin's mechanical kick landed like a sledgehammer on Jester's chest. Jester reeled backward, but before he could fall, Ronin appeared on the other side. This time, an elbow strike. The ruffled collar around Jester's neck became stained with blood.
"Magnetic soles," Jester whispered, as he skidded across the metal floor. "To neutralize my gravity shifts..." He spat blood onto the ground. "And sound insulation... so my laughter doesn't melt its brain."
Kaelen rose from behind cover and fired 'The Judge.' .45 caliber armor-piercing rounds tore through the air. But Ronin seemed to have calculated the incoming rounds. He twisted his body at impossible angles, and the bullets flowed around his armor as if passing through a liquid substance, embedding themselves in the wall.
The voice in Jester's mind, Echo, screamed in panic: *"Watch out! Its processor is linked to a quantum-based probability engine. It's simulating and eliminating every move you make. Your chances of winning are 0.001% Jester. This isn't a fight, it's an execution."*
When Jester hit the wall, all the air was knocked out of his lungs. His vision blurred. His metal leg had locked up, its motors burned out from trying to keep pace with Ronin's speed. Ronin activated the energy sword in his hand. The plasma at the tip of the blade aimed for the blue reactor in Jester's chest, that artificial heart keeping him alive.
Kaelen saw it.
Time slowed for Kaelen. Jester's exhausted body, Ronin's descending blade, and the Architect's indifferent light... His analytical mind scanned the options. Shooting was useless. Shouting was meaningless. The last card up his sleeve was the EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) bomb, modified with parts salvaged from an old Russian satellite, resting in his vest pocket.
But there was distance. If he threw the bomb, Ronin would catch it in mid-air or deflect it with his magnetic field. Ronin was flawless. He was error-free.
And Kaelen knew they needed an error.
He burst from cover. Pulling the bomb's pin, he didn't run towards Ronin; he ran between Jester and Ronin, directly into the embrace of death.
"Hey, tin can!" Kaelen roared.
In the microsecond Ronin turned his head, Kaelen didn't throw the bomb. He pressed it against his own chest and slammed into Ronin's back.
**BOOM.**
The explosion was silent, but its effect was devastating. A blue shockwave erupted from Kaelen's body. Kaelen was thrown backward like a rag doll and slammed onto the metal floor. The last sound he heard before losing consciousness was the high-pitched, agonizing electronic screech from Ronin's armor.
Ronin staggered. His shields flickered. His camouflage failed, revealing his grey armor. His flawless quantum processor had registered a "Connection Error" for a single second.
One second. That was all Jester needed.
Jester accepted the pain as data and pushed it aside. He launched himself from the base of the wall. But he didn't strike Ronin. He didn't try to grab the sword.
He embraced him.
Like a clown embracing an old friend, he wrapped his arms around Ronin's metal body. He opened the port on its nape and, taking advantage of that one-second firewall collapse, infiltrated Ronin's exposed data input.
"Viruses," Jester whispered into Ronin's ear. His voice had become mechanical, his eyes beginning to burn with a purple flame. "Do you know how they defeat antiviruses? Not by fighting them... but by making them work overtime."
And Jester opened his mind.
It wasn't just a virus code he sent. He spewed everything from Echo's database, all of Nova-Veridia's digital junk, into Ronin's pure, logical, sterile mind.
Millions of low-resolution cat videos. Corrupted pop songs from the 1980s. The endless loop of the "This sentence is false" paradox. All the bad jokes in human history. Crying baby sounds. Static noise. Meaningless numbers. Colors. Smells.
This was the biological equivalent of a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack. Jester wasn't giving Ronin an ocean of information, but a *flood* of information.
Ronin's head fell back. Smoke began to billow from the joints of his armor. His probability engine tried to process the incoming data but couldn't.
*"'Cat... Meow... Pi number... Logic error... Why did the chicken... Cross the road...'"* Ronin's voice skipped like a broken record. *"'Data... Overload... Meaningless...'"*
Ronin's red eye first flickered, then turned the deadly color of a "Blue Screen."
Jester loosened his grip but didn't pull back. Ronin was frozen. Locked up. The universe's most advanced artificial intelligence had crashed in the face of a clown's chaotic mind.
"Life isn't logical, Ronin," Jester said. He plunged his right hand into the blue-glowing processor core in Ronin's chest. The metal parted between his fingers like heated butter. "Life is a terrible joke. And you..."
Jester clenched his hand into a fist and crushed the delicate hardware inside.
"...didn't get the joke."
He pulled it out.
That artificial heart, made of flesh and wires, shattered in Jester's hand. Ronin's nano-armor disintegrated like a sandcastle. The colossal war machine fell to its knees, then crashed loudly to the floor. It was now just an empty pile of metal.
Silence fell over the room. Only the hiss of smoke and Kaelen's ragged breath in the distance could be heard.
Jester dropped the machine parts from his hand onto the floor. He was tired. So tired that he felt his bones liquefying. He took a step towards Kaelen.
"Detective..." he said, his voice trembling.
But the Architect decided to speak.
"Enough."
There was no anger in his tone. No disappointment. Only the coldness of a scientist noting the results of an experiment.
The countless data cables on the room's floor suddenly came alive. They shot up from the ground like black snakes. Before Jester could even react, they wrapped around his wrists, ankles, and neck.
"No!" Jester struggled, trying to use his glitch ability, but the cables weren't physical; they were clamped directly onto his nervous system.
Jester's body was lifted into the air. The cables stretched him, leaving him suspended in the air like a crucifix.
"Your physical form is too limited, Prototype 0," said the Architect. The mass of light intensified. "You're compressing your potential between flesh and bone. Come with me. Let's play on my home turf."
Jester's eyes fell one last time on Kaelen, his friend lying on the ground. Kaelen, semi-conscious, looked back at him with bloody eyes.
"Kaelen..." Jester said, but his voice didn't come from his own mouth. His voice digitized and vanished within the cables.
A burst of light erupted.
Jester's body convulsed violently, his back arched like a bow, and then... suddenly went limp.
The cables didn't release him, but what they held was no longer Jester. It was just an empty shell. His head fell forward. The light in his eyes completely extinguished. Neither hazel, nor purple, nor red. Just an empty, dead grey.
Kaelen groaned in pain, trying to push himself up. His ribs were broken, his ears ringing. He lifted his head.
He saw Jester's lifeless body hanging from the ceiling amidst hundreds of cables. The man who was always moving, always speaking, always laughing... now swayed like a puppet.
The Architect's light had faded, and the room was plunged into darkness. Only the emergency lights flickered.
"Jester..." Kaelen whispered, his voice catching in his throat. But the only reply was the cold, soulless hum of the server room.
***
Simultaneously, in another place. Or rather, in a place that couldn't be called a "place."
Jester opened his eyes.
There was no pain. No cold. His leg didn't ache. In fact, his prosthetic leg was gone; his own leg was in its place. He wasn't wearing that old, worn clown costume, but a pristine, pure white suit.
His surroundings were an infinite whiteness. There was no horizon. No ceiling. Just a blinding, smooth whiteness.
Opposite him, sat a man in a white chair. A middle-aged, ordinary-looking man in a grey suit. He held a Rubik's Cube, but all the squares on the cube were the same color: White.
The man raised his head and looked at Jester.
"Welcome," said the Architect, in a human voice. "File transfer complete. Now... we can truly talk."