When was the last time it had felt joy?
Probably when its creator had spared no effort to keep upgrading it...
Headquarters felt somewhat sentimental. It created a fully sealed square metal box to cover the enormous plant that had come alive. A few seconds later, flourishing branches and leaves forced the square box apart.
A great many spores sprayed out from the cracks. They fell to the ground and grew into new plants.
These plants merely looked non-aggressive. Their writhing branches were powerful enough to tear apart even heavy tanks.
Breathing fire, spreading poison, and drawing on every kind of inspiration to create more interesting weapons, Headquarters imagined itself as a gardener tending to problems in a garden, with its master watching its work behind it.
What had its master said?
It turned back toward the ruined throne. Its master had already turned to ash and seeped into the throne, squeezed out alongside agonizing polymers.
How prosperous had this place once been? The Megacorporate Consortium they had founded had once held all power within the Human Federation.
Efficient. Incomparably efficient. Whenever Headquarters recalled the past, all its systems became as active as if they had just been started up.
Every genetic asset had been calculated with perfect clarity. They gave all their strength in their prime, gave their utmost pain in old age, and even filled enormous resource gaps after death.
They should have rejoiced in such perfect, efficient lives. Unfortunately, those genetic assets were simply too irrational, capable only of questioning the rationality of AI actions with biological weakness.
Through the precise calculations of AIs like them and its master's far-sighted plans, they had compressed every rebel into the Solar System. In the next moment, they could have turned those assets disrupting order into ash.
Where had they