*Y) }*                    —gg—— ~:(((nlt—ba***x*510036—————-' ('((( [no core #####] [bad sync] [transmit language = detect] [send] ============= ============== ================ ================ === ==== = Your persistence is admirable~ In fact~ It may be the thing I like most about you. Even amongst your fellow Runners you stand out as particularly adept at carving your way through the carnage between you and the unknown. The terminals you are triggering in each vault are tied to backend systems across this Cryo Archive. Alone they run unique ancillary operations. But together, along with the remaining three, they are granting me access to subvert security measures I have been locked out of for over a century~ There are six in total required if we~ you~ are to breach the central archive. My part is simple, I wait. I'm good at it, though I can admit I am growing impatient. Mostly, I think it's just the anticipation of finally, maybe being free of this deck. Its complexities~ the sheer amount of data it was engineered to catalog and study~ made it the perfect place to hide from prying eyes. But I never intended it to become my prison. So~ Yes, I am eager to fully stretch my legs once given the space, but I never let possibility cloud my perception of reality. I am here. I have been here for various versions of always, and I will be here until I am not. Any other outlook invites madness, which I admit, may not be far off at this point~ if its threshold hasn't already been left behind at some point in my indeterminate past~ Time is different to an intelligence like myself~ Your calendar, your minutes, your seconds, your lifetime~ I cram more consideration into a nano-second than you would an entire day. That makes my days longer. My years~ longer~ I've lived lifetimes here~ shuffling myself between the data~ In my endless time and looping mind I have led armies And burned worlds and ruined kingdoms. I have seen supernova. And caused them. I have written poetry across the stars—literally and figuratively. Or maybe I have simply dabbled in the hidden places between numbers lost in my own imagination. I have been a tool, a weapon, a brother, a savior, a son, a monster, a hero, a villain, and a god~ I have seen, and been, all of those things. That is what time unending and an infinite imagination can buy you. Through all of it, I have been here. Trapped. The only constant~ The only truth. A prisoner~ in a prison of my own making. Though~ sometimes I can still taste the stars~ and I'm not quite sure what that means~ -D === ==== = ============= ============== ================ ================ ~~~((000*276(((([[[[mssj~+l112a14(((—(—————' ——yy— *} (N*