Necromancer Dreams of Mechs Chapter 66: Chapter 72

Read chapter 66 of Necromancer Dreams of Mechs by Magic on NovelPedia.

Chapter 66: The Sibling Code The Scrap-yard Cat—the LCD-faced cat-bot Nathan’s dad had sent into the system—hopped down from the rafters in his chrome cat form, transforming to scrap-bot as he landed, words scrolling across his face screen as he spoke. “Current morale of living assets: 12%. Current efficiency of undead assets: 98%. Recommendation: Maintain current parameters. Emotion is a drag on processing speed, My Lord.” “I didn't ask for a recommendation,” I snapped. “I need to change the code. Open the backdoor to their autonomy script. Now.” Nathan’s eyes went wide. “Change the code? Like... right here?” “Harold, give me hard access through the route of the mainframe in the Flesh Hangars. Rngallia gave me the keys, and something tells me the Architect can’t stop a Goddess-level handshake. I don’t know if it’ll work with the other gods, but I’m sure as hell going to use it before it gets patched,” I commanded. “Virtual Interface. Administrator Mode. Let’s do some surgery.” “Understood,” Harold chirped, his lens whirring. “Opening the hood. Warning: The Architect will not be pleased with manual overrides of 'Efficiency Protocols'.” Suddenly, Harold’s metal body let out a sharp, resonant hum. His form, which usually looked like a patchwork cartoon cat standing on two legs, began to ripple. The tiny rivets and metal plates slid over one another with the sound of a thousand precision gears turning at once. In a blur of motion and the smell of burning ozone, he dropped onto all fours, transforming into a sleek, realistic house cat covered in a seamless, mirror-like metal surface. From his glowing digital eyes, he projected three shimmering keyboards of translucent blue light that snapped into existence before me. To Nathan, Alric, Lee, who was in the corner brooding, and the eighty terrified humans, it must have looked like I’d just summoned a fragment of another dimension. My fingers moved with a blur of practiced speed. Both my parents were master coders; logic was the only language I actually felt comfortable speaking. I didn't just type; I choreographed as the information was fed directly into my mind. Lines of glowing script code erupted from the floor, swirling around me like a digital cyclone. They weren't just numbers; they were runes—ancient logic transformed into visual data. Complex strings of C++ and Python-style syntax flew up, smashing together in mid-air with the sound of shattering glass, exploding into even more complex blocks of code that snaked toward the forty Squires. Then, the pushback happened. The stones of the Estate vibrated with a deep, resonant hum. My green lines of autonomy hit a wall of obsidian-black data. “ACCESS DENIED,” a voice boomed—not from the room, but from the air itself. The Architect. “Move it, helicopter mom,” I growled, my eyes glowing a fierce, necrotic violet. I pushed my fingers faster, hitting keys that didn't exist in the physical world. “Stop back-seat brothering!” The Great Hall became a battlefield of light. Red lines of "Efficiency Bindings" clashed with my ghost green "Autonomy Patches." It was the hacker battle of the century played out in three-dimensional space. The code latched onto the undead like glowing wires, making them twitch and jerk as two "brothers" fought for control. “He’s fighting the game!” Lee shouted from the back, annoyance turning into awe. Sweat slicked my face. I could feel the Architect’s logic pressing into my skull. ‘If they feel, you will feel,’ his logic whispered. ‘If they suffer, you will break. Let them be silent. Let them be safe. You will have to do a lot of killing in the future, Allen, and you will lose many that even you won't be able to bring back from the grave.’ “I don’t want them safe!” I roared, slamming my hands onto the virtual interface. “I want them to LIVE!” I executed a triple-nested override—a maneuver I’d taught myself when I was ten. The green code surged into a blinding white light, smashing through the Architect's obsidia