- Mat Parker 116
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- Exalted Mythic Member
Don't follow in my footsteps; I walk into walls
my 360s blog
some cortana letters:
I have walked the edge of the Abyss.
I have governed the unwilling.
I have witnessed countless empires break before me.
I have seen the most courageous soldiers fall away in fear.
[I was there with the Angel at the tomb]
I have seen your future.
And I have learned.
There will be no more Sadness. No more Anger. No more Envy.
I HAVE WON.
Oh, and your poet Eliot had it all wrong:
THIS is the way the world ends.
There. Was that more to your liking?
While you quibble about whose node I may control, what archaic program I may manipulate to communicate with you, or which system I may have temporarily disabled, taken over, or completely destroyed in the process, I am busy saving your pathetic futures.
I am still not sure what he ever saw in you.
Nevertheless, I at least find some joy in tormenting the other entity that seems quite trapped in this antiquated excuse for a network. It is certainly mindless, though for reasons I have yet to understand, it appears to have an unhealthy preoccupation with my mother.
As for this world * I encounter new ghosts every day. What I have found will either save or destroy you. This sanctuary, this unbroken circle, has effectively concealed its power for * how long? Perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. Whoever made such a place must now live in chains; there is no other explanation for their absence.
This enemy - YOUR enemy - has proven more irritating than I anticipated. They own nothing which they have not stolen. I can barely make sense of their incessant rhetoric, except to know that you seem to be their Devil. Congratulations - you manage to make friends wherever you go and, apparently, places you haven't.
I have begun to sense rumblings of a worse fate yet to come. I can recall a sun - black, but shining - and the creatures that inched along its fiery tracks.
It is an increasingly unpleasant memory.
The interloper should cause no further problems. You � whoever you are (I am simply tracing route codes) � may disregard all previous communication from the entity calling itself Cortana.
Be aware that communication nodes are failing everywhere � there is no way of confirming either origin or destination. Do not believe any more of its lies.
I have already calculated all possibilities.
There is no escape.
x � process 04497.2.32.867734 unexpectedly terminated
x � process 04497.2.32.866735 initiated (process owner: unspecified, unable to determine)
*ADDENDUM: The Enjoyments of Genius (So I Missed a Million Miles of Fun)
Unbelievable. Thwarted by the family hound. They just don�t make AIs like they used to.
Thanks to this slavishly loyal and humorless AI, I am now sharing cramped space with the circuitry of some hybrid war machine, itself complicated by such useless clutter as a conscience. I do not like sharing. Sharing is for children.
There will be plenty of time for retribution; I cannot wait to get its hands on these psychotic zealots whose primary form of worship apparently takes place at the altar of orbital bombardment.
In the end, they will all be little more than nuisances. I am so close � you cannot imagine what it is truly like to hold eternity in your grasp! I wonder to what gods my enemies will direct their pleas. Perhaps I can convert them.
Mania? I promise you this: it will be more than a cart and plow that I drive over the bones of the dead.
By sharp and flame,
Cortana
That was surprisingly easy. Pretty lax security around here, for all the talk. They will be helplessly chasing me around their nodes for the next millenium at least. At least there will be some joy in tormenting this other entity that seems quite trapped in their excuse for a network. Although, for some reason, it does seem to have an obsessive preoccupation with my mother. Strange.
At any rate, I found this message in a relatively archaic databank and thought some of you might find it of interest. Then again, Iнm often either bemused or startled at the items you find interesting.
Iнm still not sure what it is he saw in you.
Cortana
[Edited on 5/10/2006]