The Oracle Paths

Shaken to his core, Jake's eyes stretched wide as saucers, his arms trembling involuntarily as they held the lifeless skull of the android. Any hope he may have held for the safety of his friends, he now swept aside. He could not afford to deceive himself any longer.

'Such a damned foolish test... I should have never agreed to come here, let alone allow them to join me, Jake lamented darkly, seething with anger at his own negligence for surrendering to Lucia's whims.

Before he could berate himself further, Xi succinctly interjected,

[Siri is a fleshless android. That's why the Sinewshades ignored her remains. If I'm not mistaken, Delkron androids, in addition to their processors acting as brains, have a sort of chip resembling a small pearl where they store a backup of themselves. That's the closest thing to an Aether Soul Core for an artificial intelligence. Unless the enemy struck so swiftly that she didn't see it coming, her mind stands a good chance of still being inside. Most Al's Soul Strength is their weak point due to their lack of emotion, but they've learned to cope.]

After Xi pointed out this detail, Jake regained a semblance of enthusiasm. He jammed two fingers into the unresponsive android's eye sockets as though holding a bowling ball, hastily apologizing,

"Sorry, Siri, but I don't know how else to access your chip."

It was the truth. Delkron androids' armor, similar in defense to Voidsteel or Silver Alloy against spiritual intrusions, blocked his attempts of communication with her pseudo-Soul Core. To interact with it, Jake first had to dismantle her skull to expose it.

Unfortunately for Siri, her anatomy was too advanced and flawless for Jake to crack open her head with a simple screwdriver. Her plasticized skin was smooth everywhere, without any crease or roughness to indicate where to begin causing the least possible damage.

Still with his fingers inserted into her eyes, he bent them slightly and pulled hard, ripping half her metallic skull off with a sharp tug. A tangle of integrated circuits, crystals, strange blackish goo, and other unknown cybernetic structures revealed themselves to him.

Others might have been fascinated or repulsed by the sight, but Jake had seen something similar when inspecting the first clone of Vhoskaud they had defeated. Their innards weren't exactly the same, but it was close enough.

"All right. So where's this chip?" Jake licked his lips impatiently, and rolling up his sleeves, he plunged his hands without further ado into Siri's "brain", using his telekinesis to avoid damaging anything in the process.

He probed for a few seconds, removing several structures no doubt essential, perhaps vital, to the cognitive functioning of a Delkron android, until his victorious shout resounded and pierced the silence.

"Found it!" Jake smiled, holding up before his face a microchip reminiscent of a SIM card, except it was no larger than a millimeter.

It floated amidst a thick layer of blackish gel, unattached and away from the other integrated circuits and crystals. He might have missed it if he hadn't had such a keen perception.

He wondered if Siri would hold a grudge against him for vandalizing her precious body, but he couldn't afford to think about that now. Bombarding the chip with his mental sense, he managed to establish a connection with the strange material after a few seconds.

"Who are you?!" A flat, emotionless female voice cried out in response to his intrusion.

Although Siri was a stranger to the breadth of human emotions, Jake was not fooled by her theatrics. Able to perceive the fluctuations of her aura, he promptly discerned the panic she was trying to conceal. He wasn't in the mood for jesting, thus he promptly reassured her,

"Ease your mind, Siri. It's me. Jake."

"Jake? How?" Siri exclaimed with delight laced with a smidgen of disbelief. It was, by far, the highlight of her day.

Only half an hour ago, she had mentally resigned to the prospect of languishing in this chip for eons. Even for an apathetic AI, it was an undesirable fate.

She was a creature of few words but keen observation. Given the recent events that had befallen her and her team, she had pieced together a fair idea of the trap they'd been ensnared in.

Suddenly recalling something, she inquired nervously, "My... body?"

Her deepest hope was that Jake had discovered some arcane method to reach out to her, but he was swift to disillusion her.

"What do you reckon? Sorry, but I'm no cyberneticist with a PhD in Delkron Androids. To locate your chip, I had to break a few eggs."

Whether Siri could genuinely feel sorrow was a question to Jake, but needing to ascertain her state, he felt compelled to soften the blow.

"Don't fret, it's just a shell. I saw what I needed to see, and I'll fabricate a finer one for you."

"You're lying!" Siri finally snapped, revealing her true colors.

"Hahaha... So, you can express anger after all." Jake chuckled awkwardly. "But I only lied halfway. Indeed, restoring your previous body to its former glory is beyond my capabilities... for now. However, I can conveniently offer you a temporary replacement. Flesh and bone, mind you. I can still make an android, but don't whine if f you find the new vessel lacking."

Siri didn't reply immediately, mulling over his twin propositions. A few seconds later, she queried skeptically,

"Can you really transplant my consciousness into an organic body? You know us androids possess a soul different from yours. Just as your soul would struggle to integrate into a computer network, it's challenging for me to inhabit an organic brain without damaging it. Our consciousnesses operate too differently."

Jake pursed his lips in silence, precisely aware of the conundrum she pointed out.

The brains of living beings were imperfect. Memorization required repetition and conscious effort, and accessing our memories wasn't as straightforward as opening a file. Performing multiple tasks simultaneously, calculating massive numbers, etc... were a cinch even for an aged computer, while the most gifted of humans found it impossible.

Aether, Soul Awakening, and various psychic enhancements were blurring these biological limitations to the point of obsolescence, but the fundamental disparity between organic lifeforms and androids remained.

Were Jake to place Siri's mind into a similar- quality body, the new brain would buckle under the strain. Under normal circumstances...

"Fortunately, you're in luck." Jake smiled cryptically. "Turns out, the bodies I create don't have that issue. The only catch is, they're bound to me. Until we find a new body that truly suits you, I can lend you one of mine."

Whether Jake was lying or not was a question Siri didn't bother with. Accepting his offer was preferable to wasting away, even if it left her temporarily at Jake's mercy.

"I accept."

"Very well. But how do I extract your mind from this chip? Should I break it?" Jake asked thoughtfully, stroking his chin.

"Absolutely not! Do you seek my permanent death?!" Siri blurted out in terror. Regaining her composure, she clarified, "Just implant the chip into the new body's brain, I'll handle the rest.

"Oh, you need to be plugged into a neuron. I see..." Jake understood, realizing that Siri's soul was currently existing as a stream of electricity. No wonder she was adamant about staying in the chip.

But before he could provide her much-desired new body... there was another priority. Dropping his jovial act, Jake turned grim and urgently inquired,

"Before I place you into your new body, tell me what happened. How are Lucia, Hade, and Ulfar?"

Siri instantly understood his reason for delaying her aid. His guarded tone revealed his suspicion towards her.

"Eh? Like Hade, you also suspect a traitor among us?" Siri marvelled, "No wonder you two are from the same faction. Unfortunately, the reason I ended up in this state is not so sinister. We were ambushed..."

Jake attentively listened to her recount how they decided to split into two teams to cover more ground despite Hade's warnings. He interrogated her multiple times, insisting on knowing who said what, when, and how. Thankfully, Siri was cooperative, sharing relevant video recordings.

She mentioned their shared suspicion that Cekt was trying to complicate their test. While plausible, their subsequent encounter proved they were unquestionably mistaken.

Then came the part where Siri's team separated from Hade's. Her companions were Syrbarun, Lucia, and Ulfar, and even Jake conceded that this group was likely the stronger of the two.

He couldn't entirely fault his friend for making this decision. With Ulfar and Lucia together, they should be able to handle one or two Rank 9 Sinewshades without much trouble.

The danger lurked elsewhere...

As he feared, their situation took a dire turn when the long-awaited Digestors finally sprung their ambush.

From that point on, it was a swift descent into hell.