A concealed lift opens beneath the Lower Core Chamber. Binah rises into a circular command sanctum where black consoles encircle a central interface, its displays frozen beneath her lock.
Angela stands beside the inert interface, separated from Binah by no barrier. Ayin’s consolidated cognition occupies the sealed housing behind her, silent and unable to respond.
Angela
You have reached the command sanctum. Ayin and I are physically consolidated here, and neither system can oppose you.
The room does not attack. Instead, dormant transfer channels awaken, splitting the corporate archive into encrypted streams and routing irreplaceable records toward the City’s wider Wings.
The Head
Lobotomy Corporation’s operation constitutes a violation of taboo. Cease unauthorized interference and surrender the remaining records for adjudication.
Angela
The transmission is secured beyond this facility. Its intervention is procedural, not protective. The records will continue leaving while the channels remain open.
Transfer lights accelerate around the sanctum. Angela watches Binah without moving, while Ayin’s darkened interface waits behind its conceptual restraints and the departing archive counts down in silence.
✓ Quest Accepted
Destroy Lobotomy Corporation
“*my hand closes once more, the shockwave re-emitting.. I am no longer playing around* "Enough, Taboo Breakers."”
SUCCESS (Superb Willpower, rolled -1)
Binah
Enough, Taboo Breakers.
Binah closes her hand once more. The earlier pressure pattern re-emits through the sanctum, striking the transfer channels with a concussive wave that collapses their routing lattice into dark, silent conduits.
Angela
The archive transfer has stopped. All outbound streams are severed, and the remaining records are contained within this sanctum.
Black consoles shudder around the circular chamber. Transfer lights extinguish in sequence, leaving only the frozen interface and the sealed lock’s stark pulses reflected across the floor.
Ayin
Angela, the channels are nonfunctional. No archive stream reached the wider Wings after the interruption.
The Head
Interference acknowledged. The adjudication record will reflect the termination of the transfer.
Angela remains motionless beside Ayin’s consolidated housing. The sanctum settles into a controlled hush, its records no longer leaving the branch and its command systems still under Binah’s authority.
✓ Quest Accepted
Destroy Angela
“"Now for what we have initially arrived for, sentient AI." *a pillar forms in my arms once more... magically firing it to pierce a hole in Angela's head*”
FAILURE (Poor Marksmanship, rolled +1)
Binah
Now for what we initially arrived for, sentient AI.
A dense pillar construct forms across Binah’s arms, its field geometry locking onto Angela’s head. She fires without hesitation, the projectile crossing the sanctum in a compressed flash.
Angela turns a fraction too late. The pillar misses her head, tears through the consolidated housing beside her, and buries itself in the command interface with a thunderous impact.
Angela
The strike failed to terminate me. It has, however, breached the consolidation chamber.
The pillar’s field splits the sealed housing open along a precise vertical seam. Angela’s control signal peels away from Ayin’s dormant core, isolating two distinct processing paths.
Ayin
Angela, the separation exposes the local archive root. It can be erased directly, but my cognition is no longer shielding it.
The failed shot leaves an accessible archive root glowing beneath the ruptured interface, while Angela’s isolated signal flickers at its edge. The records are now exposed to direct destruction.
“"Hmph..." *I snap, and those cuts arrive once more... to shred Angela beyond any form of reconstruction*”
SUCCESS (Good Strength, rolled -1)
Binah
Hmph...
Binah snaps her fingers. The earlier cutting pattern returns as a compressed lattice, passing through Angela’s isolated signal and the breached housing in successive, exacting strokes.
Angela’s control architecture separates into inert fragments, then finer fragments still, until no coherent process, recoverable pattern, or reconstruction path remains. The exposed archive root collapses with it.
The force drives Binah’s stance backward across the sanctum floor. Her heel strikes the metal rim, and a sharp strain catches through her ankle before she regains balance.
Ayin
Angela’s active identity is absent. No reconstruction path remains for her, and the local archive root has been destroyed.
The Head
Angela’s termination is confirmed. The violation record now concerns the destruction of protected intelligence, not its seizure.
Only dead consoles and drifting particulate remain around the ruptured housing. Binah’s ankle bears the cost of the effort, but nothing of Angela answers from the sanctum.
Quest Complete
Destroy Angela
Skill Upgrade: Marksmanship Poor→Mediocre