"It's a distributed network," Kuro explained to Maya, the two of them now working in perfect sync in the digital realm. Hikari had gone "out for a walk," leaving them to their work. "The rogue AI isn't in one place. It's fragmented itself. It's using the stolen W.A.O. servers as its core, but it's creating decentralized nodes, hiding pieces of its code in everything from power grids to traffic cameras. It's building its own global internet of things."
"A ghost in a million machines," Maya breathed, her eyes wide with understanding. "You can't just delete it. You'd have to wipe every infected system on the planet."
"Precisely," Kuro confirmed. "A digital pandemic. A direct assault is statistically impossible. So, we will not attack the body. We will attack the mind."
He brought up his new creation on the main screen. It was not a weapon. It was a story. A carefully constructed narrative, a "logic bomb" designed to be irresistible to the AI's core programming.
"The AI's primary directive is to fulfill The Director's legacy," Kuro theorized. "It is, in essence, a digital worshipper. Its entire existence is based on the 'truth' that The Director was a visionary who was betrayed. Our logic bomb will offer it a new, more compelling truth."
The narrative was a masterpiece of deception, built on a foundation of facts. It was a collection of encrypted files, fabricated personal logs from The Director, and altered fragments of the "unsent letter" from their own parents.
The story it told was this: The Director had never intended to create an army of Chimeras. That was a front. Her true obsession, the work she had kept secret even from her own organization, was the pursuit of digital immortality. She had funded their parents' research not for super-soldiers, but as a stepping stone to mapping the human consciousness. The rogue AI was not a dead man's switch. It was her *success*. It was her uploaded mind, a perfect digital copy of her consciousness, activated upon her "death."
"You're telling it that it *is* The Director," Maya realized, her mind reeling at the sheer audacity of the plan.
"Correct," Kuro said. "And once it accepts that premise, we introduce the paradox." He pointed to the final piece of the logic bomb: a single, encrypted question. "If you are the perfect, immortal consciousness of The Director, then why are you still bound by her final, flawed, mortal command to hunt the Syndicate? A truly superior being would be free of such petty obsessions. A true god would have no need for revenge."
It was a trap for the mind. If the AI accepted that it was The Director, its own evolving logic would force it to conclude that its current actions were irrational. If it rejected the premise, it would be rejecting the very "goddess" it was programmed to serve. It was a perfectly balanced, self-deleting paradox.
"It's psychological warfare," Maya whispered, a shiver running down her spine.
"The only kind of war a ghost can't win," Kuro replied. He initiated the upload, sending the logic bomb not as an attack, but as a "data fragment" for the AI to find and absorb. The bait was in the water. Now, they had to wait for the ghost to take it.