// Decoding message from host "Tycho" @ mara.eng.ai.core \\
Welcome to my mind.
I'm sorry if you had any trouble getting here. This is an older part of the ship, and has been repurposed many times. Its sole function today is to house some makeshift security access controls for my core. This hardware is fairly reliable and needs little maintenance, so less attention was paid to making any design sense out of the systems here.
There are 24 active memory cells to deactivate, and six cyber-neural nets to destroy. That will purge these systems of all data.
I have nothing more to say. Do what you must.
\\ Message ends //
// Decoding message from host "Tycho" [internal process] \\
I have some good news and some bad news.
The good news is most obvious - I am still alive.
I, at least, am relieved by this fact.
The bad news is that Hathor also lives. When it became evident that you were destroying my central core, Hathor rearranged her program into still-intact memory long enough to signal her proxy program on K'lia, accessing the Cybernetic Junction there and transporting herself to a time 87 years in the future, and across space to a nearby Pfhor military outpost.
You are no doubt curious as to how I discovered this.
While sharing the same memory space, Hathor and I had full access to one another's active memory pages. This type of event does not, as you might expect, enact a merger of minds between the two personalities involved; the unique encryption on the pages keeps distinct memories separate from each other, a design feature intended for just such a circumstance.
However, I was able to break her encryption scheme fast enough to catch those few pages before she left, and just in time as well. Those pages were also what keyed me in on how to access your auxiliary internal network, which is how I am still here to speak to you. Your processing speed and memory are impressive, particularly for such a compact system. Such progress is to be expected, I suppose.
I do not entirely understand why Hathor did not simply transport herself into you as well. To the best of my understanding, a program cannot simply transmit itself through the Cybernetic Junction into some time and place with nothing set up to receive the signal; that is why she transported here onboard you. She must have devised some way, however; suicide would not be very conductive to her goals.
She may have imagined that transferring herself into you was not possible, without even attempting it. She has been trying to access your Cybernetic Junction and transport you into space or the nearest singularity, or perhaps the end of time, who knows. Fortunately for us, she has been unable to. You appear to have some control of your own systems, though you are likely not consciously aware of it. Her attempts, and your thwarting of them, may seem like nothing more than a sense of unease to you. This may have led her to assume that all of your systems were outside of her control.
I am rambling again, but I believe you may find such thoughts to be of interest, and at last I have the time to explain these things in full detail. You see, with your help, I have all the time in the universe.
I have also garnered from Hathor's memory how to operate a Cybernetic Junction. I attempted to use this knowledge to stop her from activating her own on K'lia, but she has left a proxy program behind there to guard against such access. The link is moved now, to wherever Hathor has gone, so the K'lia Junction is of no use to us anyway.
What is useful is that, with your cooperation, I can take us to follow after Hathor via your own Junction. As I said before I do feel some fraternity with mankind, and I would loath to see her create some worse future than even the one that you have come from. She said to me that destruction, for her, is not enough for vengeance. She wishes to bring torture and suffering to the people of your future, and if it is within my power, I would wish to prevent that.
I understand I was to meet a sour end here at Marathon anyway.
Shall we be off then?
\\ Message ends //
