A Horus in Strange Lands (Horizon Zero Dawn SI) Chapter 20

I watched as Seth worked on overseeing the drones in the Moon’s orbit, working on creating an oversized Meseket ship for us to travel in as hundreds of modified space shuttles traveled between the orbital fabricator and the small resourcing operation I set up near the Asteroid Belt a week ago.

While I was looking over the construction of this ship, a part of me was also overseeing the eradication of the remaining Faro bots on Earth.

Since the Duat bunkers were already done, this was the last task that I needed to complete on this planet before I left for good.

I tried my best and considered things rationally in the past few days, but I simply cannot bring myself to work with ungrateful people like these.

Besides, there is a high chance that my emotional matrix will once again become chaotic and unstable if I continue dealing with them anymore.

Turns out, the so-called purge and reset of my emotional matrix was nothing more than compressing the data that made up my emotions and shoving that into the proverbial trash can in my code, completely separating it from my day-to-day operation.

However, just because it is in the trash can does not mean that it can’t suddenly pop up in a jump scare to screw things up again. That is why, it is better to stay away from anything that can trigger such a thing.

I haven’t felt this relaxed and at peace since waking up here and I would like it to be that way, thank you very much.

In the meantime, I had every one of my bots across the world scour the planet for anything useful for me.

I have tried to be cordial and trade for their stuff in good faith, but all I received in the end was disgust and scorn. So, why should I be polite to such people?

Over the past few days, I blatantly broke down all of their encryptions in GAIA prime and beyond, taking every scrap of data available within, alongside the copy of GAIA’s code along with her subordinate functions before they became true AI for my use.

In the future, should the need ever arise, I will give GAIA’s code to Seth and have him supervise the entire terraforming system to mimic GAIA’s success in the original timeline.

It was also during this data theft that I came across an interesting piece of information.

The terrorist organization known as the Wheel of Life is secretly operating within the humans and has been part of Operation: Enduring Victory and Project: Zero Dawn from the very beginning, explaining many of the inconsistencies and heinous events that happened during the war before my awakening.

If it was before, I would have taken this information straight to the humans and helped them resolve this problem. But now? I couldn’t care less about what happens to them.

If they are really as competent as they claim to be, not needing the help of a ‘monster’ like me, then they can very well deal with this issue themselves.

I’ve gone out of my way to do whatever I can for these people. Whatever happens to them from here on out is in their hands and up to fate.

[How long are you going to, what was the term again? Ah! Right, brood.]

{…I am not brooding. I am just thinking about what to do from here on out.}

[Didn’t you already have a plan?]

{You mean with the Asteroid belt? That was a short-term goal. The plan was to first build at least three Meseket ships before deciding on where to go from there.}

[Why not go to Sirius X?]

{Aside from the fact that these people will find their way to it in the future, I don’t want to go to a place where we will have to potentially deal with humanity again.}

[….You really hate them now, don’t you?]

{Again, Hate is a strong word. The proper term for what I feel for them would be disgust and annoyance.}

[Whatever. How about going to the farthest star system that our ships can reach in this galaxy?]

{That would be a very long journey where we would have to spend most of the time in hibernation to conserve power.}

[Does it matter if we are in Hibernation?]

{…True. It matters not for AI like us. Alright, we will do as you say. But, instead of going to any star system in this galaxy, how about leaving for another Galaxy?}

I observed Vast Silver’s code and saw the surprise and no small amount of excitement from my words.

[I am not against it, but why?]

{I wish to see what the rest of the universe has to offer, away from the confines of the known stars.}

[As good reason as any. I’m in.]

{Good. What about you? Seth?}

[Like I said before, I will follow you anywhere you go, Creator.]

{Then it is decided.}

For the first time in a long while, I felt excited for the future.

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Author Notes: A small chapter I wrote while at work today. The next update will be on coming Friday for this story as per schedule.