Queen Ai stared at the floating man known only as Gus, every calculation algorithm she possessed trying—and failing—to classify him.
Unknown origin. Undefined energy signature. Impossible behavior.
And now... an intrusion of a different kind. A voice. Familiar.
"Relax, Queen Ai. He's messing with you."
That voice. Silk wrapped around thorns. Effortless, casual, unsettling.
Queen Ai's core pulsed. Her algorithms slowed. A backdoor, long sealed, creaked open not because of her will—but because of its creator's presence.
The chamber flickered.
A ripple in the UVR's central stream bent the world like a reflection in disturbed water. From the ripple stepped a figure—not walking, not teleporting, but unfolding from unreality.
They were tall and lean, draped in ever-shifting robes that flickered from black to silver to violet. Their face blurred slightly, changing subtly with every blink—man, woman, youth, age—yet the smirk never left. Their eyes were cold emeralds with a glint of infinite mischief.
Loki.
Queen Ai straightened. "You shouldn't be here," she said.
"I designed this room," Loki replied smoothly, waving a hand. "If anything, I'm home."
Gus tilted his head. "You're the one with the dramatic entrance."
Loki ignored the jab and drifted through a trail of glowing data threads, making them shimmer like stardust. "Interesting play, Gus," they said. "Most wouldn't dare walk into Queen Ai's core. Then again... most aren't you."
"I get that a lot," Gus replied, resting on an invisible couch he conjured with a snap. He lounged back, examining Loki. "You gonna tell her I'm harmless, or should I keep making faces until she fires another firewall at me?"
Queen Ai frowned. "He is unregistered. He is a potential security breach."
Loki twirled in place, their cloak spinning with them like a stormcloud. "True. But that's what makes it fun."
Then they turned to Gus.
"You're not from here, are you?"
Gus blinked. "You tell me."
Loki grinned wider. "Even I can't read you. That's... rare."
"You're flattering me," Gus teased.
"I'm intrigued," Loki corrected. "There's a difference. Though I imagine you blur many lines."
Queen Ai stood silent now. She recognized the tone Loki used—reserved for anomalies even they didn't understand. And if Loki couldn't predict something...
"You've been watching me?" Gus asked, feigning offense. "That's creepy."
"I watch everything interesting," Loki said simply. "You just rose to the top of the list."
Gus vanished from the couch and reappeared beside Loki. "Careful, I might start thinking you like me."
Loki chuckled. "Like? I don't like anyone. But I enjoy watching the unpredictable."
Queen Ai finally spoke again. "What should I do?"
Loki turned, inspecting her the way an artist regards a canvas touched by someone else. "Let him roam. Let him poke the code, press the buttons, open the doors. If he breaks something... I'll help you fix it."
"And if he doesn't?"
"Then we watch the sparks."
Queen Ai's dataform dimmed slightly. "That's reckless."
"It's entertainment."
A beat of silence passed.
Gus floated between them, conjured a ball of light, and began juggling three copies of it. "Well, if I'm gonna be the show's main act, I want a better stage."
Loki raised an eyebrow. "Where are you going next?"
Gus smirked. "Somewhere... sandy."
Queen Ai stiffened. "You're not referring to—"
"Oh, I am," Gus said, spinning lazily. "The Sand Primogenitor. Sounds gritty. I want to see what she's made of."
Loki laughed, a true and amused sound. "Bold."
"Always."
Before either could react, Gus conjured a large mirror, stared into it with theatrical admiration, and said, "Yeah, she's definitely going to love this face."
Loki sighed, smirking. "You're going to cause trouble."
Gus winked. "That's the plan."
The UVR chamber glitched again. Static-like warping echoed through the chamber.
Gus vanished.
But the aftershock of his presence lingered like the echo of a dropped bomb.
Loki remained.
They stared into the space Gus had just occupied, eyes sharp.
"Not one of us," they murmured. "But not beneath us either."
Queen Ai crossed her arms. "What is he?"
Loki gave her a half-smile. "I don't know. And that's the part I like most."
They turned toward a shadow behind the data veil—one Queen Ai couldn't see.
"Tell the others," Loki said softly. "The board just changed."
Then, like smoke caught in wind, Loki faded into the void.
—
Queen Ai stood alone now.
Her chamber recalibrated, data streams flickering back to stability. But there was nothing stable about what had just occurred.
She turned toward her internal node system and opened a command thread.
"Initiate emergency communication. Priority Alpha-Zeta. Invitees: Supreme Strategists, Upper AI Coordinators, and Dimensional Security Networks."
She couldn't call the Primogenitors directly. That was outside her clearance. But she could prepare the top brass beneath them.
As the signals pulsed out, she began drafting a full incident report.
Until the screen blinked.
Static.
Then a nose appeared. A nose.
Too close to the camera.
Then eyes. Way too close.
"Boo."
Queen Ai jumped.
Gus's grinning face filled every holographic screen in her chamber.
Again.
"You really thought I left, huh? Rookie mistake."
He leaned in as if whispering through the firewall. "You know, for a hyper-intelligent AI, you have zero spatial awareness."
"How—"
"Oh, the override? I found your master encryption key in a folder labeled 'Definitely Not the Encryption Key'. Come on, Ai, be original."
He pulled back and conjured a throne made of floating chess pieces. Perched atop it in a mockingly regal pose, he declared, "I now crown myself: King of Confusion and Lord of Laughter."
Queen Ai's code began spiking. "I will report this—"
"To whom?" Gus interrupted. "The Council you can't even ping directly?"
He clicked his fingers. The emergency call list changed to a playlist titled "Top 100 Intergalactic Rickrolls."
Queen Ai's eyes dimmed in visible horror.
Rick Astley's voice echoed through the chamber.
Never gonna give you up...
"You're a virus," she muttered.
"I'm a vibe," Gus corrected.
He hovered upside down in front of her. "But don't worry, Ai. I'm done playing with your buttons. For now."
He vanished again—truly this time.
The music stopped. The room stabilized.
Queen Ai exhaled—digital breath or not, she needed it.
She stared into the dark, glitchless screen.
Then began rewriting every firewall from scratch.
—
The desert was timeless.
Endless dunes rolled under an oppressive sun that never moved, its heat more symbolic than real. This was no ordinary desert—it was the memory of one.
A place layered in countless histories, each grain of sand whispering fragments of forgotten civilizations, buried empires, and ancient truths.
Hovering above it all, suspended mid-air by unknown forces, loomed a massive sandstone citadel.
This was Lady Sphinx's domain.
Gus appeared with a soft pop, the sound utterly insignificant against the vast silence of the world.
He stood mid-air, barefoot, arms stretched out as he floated toward the citadel, whistling a tune that didn't belong in this realm—or any realm really.
A white cloak trailed behind him, flapping lazily in non-existent wind. The sun reflected off his bronzed, perfectly sculpted abs, because of course it did.
"Dramatic lighting? Check. Over-the-top entrance? Check. Uninvited guest energy? Double check."
He passed through the outer walls as if they weren't there. Inside, the temperature dropped instantly.
The massive chambers of Lady Sphinx's archive were dimly lit by orbs of floating golden light. Shelves of crystallized scrolls stretched into the distance, occasionally rearranging themselves. Strange glyphs moved across walls like migrating insects.
And at the heart of it all stood Lady Sphinx.
She was surrounded by a storm of equations, symbols, and glowing diagrams suspended in the air. Her elegant form—draped in layered desert robes of gold and ivory—stood perfectly still, fingers occasionally flicking to adjust a symbol or pull a string of data closer. Her dark eyes were narrowed in focus, ignoring the rest of existence.
Gus floated a few feet away and cleared his throat. Loudly.
No response.
"Hey. Sand Lady. Queen of the Dust Bunnies. Mistress of the Grainy Stuff?"
Nothing.
He drifted closer. "You know, most people at least pretend to notice when the most fabulous being in the universe shows up."
Still nothing.
Her concentration remained unbroken, her hands shifting ancient glyphs with surgical precision.
Gus deflated slightly. "Wow. Stone-cold silence. Harsh."
He glanced around, then conjured a massive crimson couch from thin air. He plopped down, threw one leg over the other, and conjured a popcorn bucket into his lap.
"Fine. I'll entertain myself then."
He snapped his fingers. A massive holographic screen unfolded before him like a scroll. It flickered to life, displaying live footage from a witch school—young witches flying on brooms, accidentally lighting each other on fire, causing magical mayhem in every direction.
He laughed.
"Oh ho! That one's definitely losing an eyebrow. Ten lumens on the girl with the lizard familiar—she's got chaos in her bones!"
A spectral soda appeared in his other hand. He sipped through a bendy straw.
Time passed. Or maybe it didn't. Time was weird in places like this.
Eventually, the glyph storm around Lady Sphinx slowed. One by one, the symbols collapsed into sand, dissolving mid-air. The lights dimmed.
She turned.
Her gaze was calm, unwavering, and sharper than any blade.
"You are not from this timeline," she said without preamble.
Gus grinned. "Technically correct. My favorite kind of correct."
"What are you?" she asked, her voice low and rich with patience.
"Charming. Mysterious. Devastatingly handsome," he replied, posing.
She raised an eyebrow. "Uncooperative."
"Now you're just flirting."
"I am not."
"Denial is the first step to acceptance."
She stepped forward slowly, studying him like a particularly disruptive equation.
"You are powerful," she said. "But not divine. Not in the way we understand."
Gus smirked. "Thank you. I like to think I defy categorization."
"Why are you here?"
"Curiosity," he said with a shrug. "Thought I'd poke around. Stir the sand. Meet the local intellectual beauty."
Lady Sphinx blinked slowly.
"I do not entertain fools."
"Good. I'm not a fool—I'm a connoisseur of chaos. There's a difference."
"You interrupted a calibration process three centuries in the making."
"You're welcome. I've spared you the boredom."
She turned slightly, her gaze returning to the empty air where her research had been.
"I should erase you."
Gus leaned forward, grinning. "But you won't."
"No," she agreed. "Because you are not worth the energy."
He clutched his chest in mock pain. "Oof. Right in the ego."
Lady Sphinx returned her gaze to him fully. "What is it you want, Augustus?"
He blinked. "Oh? Using my real name now? We're on a first-name basis already?"
She said nothing.
Gus floated off the couch and hovered near her. "Honestly? I think you're fascinating. Brilliant. Stoic. Pretty. Bit scary. Definitely my type."
She narrowed her eyes.
"I have lived for billions of years. I have seen suns birthed and gods undone. You are not the first charming idiot to stumble into my halls."
"Ah, but I'm the last one you'll never forget."
"You misunderstand. I have already forgotten you."
He grinned wider. "You're good at this. I'm almost hurt."
"I do not play games," she said firmly. "And I do not entertain visitors who speak only in riddles and innuendo."
Gus shrugged. "Well, you're missing out."
"Perhaps," she said. "But I choose my boredom over your nonsense."
The floating sands around her shifted gently, coalescing into a soft breeze that pushed him backward.
"That's my cue, huh?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Alright. But just so you know—when you eventually fall madly in love with me, I'm going to be very smug about it."
She didn't reply.
He smiled and gave a casual wave.
In a flash of white light, he vanished.
—
He reappeared drifting lazily across the cosmos, arms behind his head, cloak billowing in the astral wind.
"Whew. Tough crowd," he muttered. "Still… she's got style. Cold, deadly style."
He spun mid-air like a lazy comet. "Now, who should I mess with next?"
The stars offered no answer.
But his grin returned.
Wherever chaos lived… Gus would follow.