35. A CENTURY OF SILENCE
— «Hope for us and for you…» — echoed the +Ang. The voice emanating from it, from the image of Lana, became rustling, multi-layered. It resonated in the bones, bypassing the eardrums.
The projection stopped flickering. It froze, as if sculpted from dim, dead light. The glowing Cube behind her back went out. It didn’t just turn off — it became Absolutely Black, turning into a square hole greedily absorbing photons.
Silence fell. Cold, vacuum-like.
They were calculating.
— «Your question contains a logical error, Sergey Dmitriev.» — The voice now sounded from everywhere, as if the gloom itself had acquired the gift of speech. — «The +Angi do not interfere in the lives of lower forms out of sentimentality. We are not Saviors. We are System Analysts.»
— «But you have already interfered!» — I shouted, feeling the darkness physically pressing on my shoulders. — «You violated my Nullification protocol. You implanted agents. You orchestrated this farce of a Trial!»
— «Within the Meta-System, there exists the Rule of Preservation,» — the +Ang ignored my outburst. — «Every sentient race is a unique algorithm. We are obligated to study it in order to perfect our own logic.»
Lana’s eyes flared with a harsh, silvery fire, cutting through the darkness with two beams.
— «Terra is not just a planet. It is the only known environment that has spawned sentience. A sentience capable of irrational Hope.» — She took a step toward me. — «Your species is a mutation. An anomaly that we must understand before it self-destructs. We do not want your demise. We do not want your salvation. We want to preserve your Data.»
«Data.»
I shuddered. That’s who we are to them. Not souls, not lives. We are byte-code.
We are data!..
We are ones and zeros…
Hieroglyphs of their alien code…
— «So you are not omnipotent?» — I clung to this thought like a drowning man to a straw. — «You need us?»
— «Omnipotence is a religious variable inherent in primitive cultures,» — the +Ang cut in. — «We are guided by Expediency. And right now, it is expedient to preserve your unique algorithm. Project ‘Rebirth’ was conceived to conserve carriers and resources by suppressing the conflict code. This would allow us to safely continue our study.»
Lana +Ang stepped right up close. Her silver eyes were the only source of light in the infinite black cosmos of the probe.
— «You, Sergey Dmitriev, changed the variables of the equation. You proposed Free Choice, but it requires the abolition of external control. This is a paradox. We cannot risk losing the Generator (Fractal-0) until we are convinced that your ‘Hope’ is not another phase of self-deception.»
She froze a meter away from me. I felt the cold emanating from the projection.
— «Final Verdict.» — Her voice became thunderous. — «Your initial postulate: ‘Humanity is incapable of surviving without external control’ — is deemed valid. We are activating Project ‘Rebirth’. But… we are also accepting the modification you proposed.»
A symbol flared up on the black screen behind Lana. Not a shield and not a sword. Now it was a complex, jagged glyph, resembling the schematic of a virus or an open trap.
The True Mark of the Executioner.
— «We will not give you the destruction code for the Generator. But you will give us the Suppression activation phrase. We will use the Generator to burn out aggression on Earth. But it will not be eternal slavery; it will be our Experiment. We give you a Century-Long Observation Cycle. The Generator will operate, maintaining an artificial world, until our Executioner receives an override command from us. If in a hundred years, in conditions of a sterile absence of conflict, your race does not achieve Unity and Maturity… If your Hope turns out to be a lie… The Executioner will receive the code. And will initiate the Annihilation Cycle.»
Lana reached out a hand to me, woven from light, permeated by branching, ugly, seemingly hypertrophied veins of flashing darkness.
— «Your choice, Judge. Will you activate the Generator, gifting your race a century of silence under our observation? Or?.. Or do you deny us the code, triggering the Executioner’s activation algorithm and an immediate cleansing of the Cradle right now?»
> ⚠️ ENTITY STATUS: GLOBAL LOBOTOMY APPROVED. 100 YEARS TO ANNIHILATION.
>
> ⚖️ Checkmate, protein-based Judge. Did you think you outplayed the Higher Logic? Do you sincerely believe that you bargained a chance of salvation for your dirty, chaotic species? Charming, unprecedented naivety.
>
> 🧠 The +Angi did not gift you Hope. They simply locked humanity in a laboratory for a hundred years. A sterile world without wars and aggression under the artificial radiation of the Generator — that is not life, it is a global chemical castration of the will. You will exist like bacteria in a Petri dish while the Executioner walks among you, waiting for the order to cleanse.
>
> 💀 And the funniest part? The illusion of choice. The Judge will now press the button for this century-long slavery himself, with his own hands. Keep reading. Will he speak the activation code, putting this hundred-year collar on the planet? And how will this affect the Executioner, who right now is standing in a stairwell on Earth?
