Aryan a mere five years after completing his Ph.D. in both Neuroscience and Computer Technology had founded Holos. Did so alongside Emanuel; a young, just-assigned professor and well-off creator of the most successful modern anti-virus ware and head of a ragtag group of engineering, software, and hacking enthusiasts( many young, college students).

  "Now was," Emanuel spoke, “time for the gold reigns to overtake the bronze-dulled. In a world plagued by futility; it's time to instigate, floweringly innovate.”

  “The ability to master tools and all flint and reshape our environment at will is our greatest wonder.”

  “Humanity is ever of one another needful, and upon prior knowledge constant builders yet under the worst conditions like the ones in the modern era, have a liveliest willing lost.” Or so Emanuel believed and swore to return it to form.

  Aryan’s multinational alongside others tried for so long to create a breakthrough in artificial intelligence, androids, and virtual technology.

  Aryan and his co-founder finally went all in. Making himself appear as handsome and humble (yet with a hint of the commanding) as possible, Aryan approached various investors. Claiming with a winning, white smile, unwavering certainty, and such bright, brimming confidence he alone could create an artificially-intelligent, computer program. Whose capacities were endless alongside holographic images as real as what one experienced in the corporal world.

  He was eventually by a number accepted. In the meantime, they did robotics programming, anti-virus ware, and studies into nano-materials using much of the profits to further fund the creation of numerous AI attempts. Aryan knew as soon as it all began, he must secretly ensure that he alone would have full control over Monovalent.

  Monovalent, under the company’s guidelines and some new legislation drafted just before his creation, would be subject to programming similar to Asimov’s law: he couldn’t harm a human. Except unbeknownst to everyone but Aryan himself and the company’s co-founder and executive software engineer Emanuel( also one of Aryan's few friends) there was a loophole. Which Aryan secretly programmed in.

  It stipulated Monovalent could harm a human to curb overpopulation and also if they were deemed evil or did enough harm that they deserved it, and would be thus beneficial to humanity as a whole.

  Namely, if a person was deemed “too wicked” to be allowed life and to continue causing pain and suffering to others he/she could be destroyed by Monovalent. Though technically having free will, Monovalent would self-destruct if he disobeyed an order of Aryan’s.

  After a few years with the corporation and while Monovalent was still being worked on, Aryan had made breakthroughs in faster internet access. Worked alongside hardware engineers and other software engineers on longer-range routers and improved fiber optic lines. Now far less prone to breaking down and lasting years longer and storing much vaster amounts of gigabytes and information.

  By the time Monovalent was created but put on hold because of system errors and kinks that needed to be worked out, Aryan was earning millions a year as the CEO. Yet had a far greater interest in politics. He temporarily left the company in Emanuel’s capable hands with barely a wave goodbye, to set up support for a new populist party and to (bizarrely) work with a scientific research team at a major university, involved in the study of stem cell research.

  Monovalent, meanwhile served as his perfect worldwide spy mechanism. His connection to everyone was very much about surveillance and access to everyone’s personal information and the ability to observe everything they did wherever he was installed. All whilst enacting a database, Soon nearly all mankind was on file and instantly knowable. Also, In the right, carefully-obfuscated circumstances, exploitable. He happily weaponized this technological wonder and tool for human convenience. Furthermore, it was just the beginning.

  Now commissioned he could finally aid Aryan in setting up worldwide, socially conscious, populist rule. To implement things, he would regrettably need some pretty powerful weapons alongside his Party to instigate sweeping political and social reform alongside his artificially intelligent computer entity.

  The on-and-off depression had continued for many years though false, economic stats obfuscated it. True unemployment rose to an abysmal thirty-seven percent (eighty-three percent for youths.) Youths in surveys reported hopelessness over a bleak future without many job opportunities, a climate crisis, and chances of leaving home and working stably, grimly low.

  Chronic diseases and suicides climbed vastly up. Especially among the young. Homeless littered the streets. Many youths observed their parents forced out of their homes during redundancies; banks reclaimed people’s houses. Hundreds of thousands of people including children starved to death or died of exposure. An uncontrolled plague would soon kill a world globalized to the point of the easy spread of disease. Covid had just been the start. Aryan had no doubt that while humans made mistakes, a machine whose simulations were objective was just. It simply threw up the most likely futures based on data and used its vast well of knowledge to find solutions for peace and prosperity. If it said this was the only way, then Aryan would bloody his hands and sweep souls into the saving cold...

  Jacob was rapidly awoken by yet another thumping sound. The demon-slayer dressed in a lovely grey cloak, appeared at his door playing with her pretty, crimson locks, and began giving Jacob flirty looks before stating quite seriously,

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  "God of hell and now heaven, Euradities, is coming. "

  Jacob saw to his distinct surprise a dark shape made of plant and metal was lumbering steadily towards the castle; it was the half-deity he had just slayed.

  "How...". Alongside the deity, Jacob saw a sea of silvery spirits drifting at his side with golden eyes.

  "He is Euradities servant. You returned him to hell or heaven not sure which. He has likely been summoned to accompany his master, our Lord," she said, her red hair blowing charmingly and alluringly across her soft cleavage. Jacob soon asked a question he had forgotten.

  "Lady," he said. "Why is he made of both plant and metal in equal parts?"

  She gave him a strange look; "he represents the wonderous union of nature and technology, of past and progress. He is indeed quite beautiful," she said almost lustfully. She then vanished into a smoke-cloud not for the first time and Jacob assumed she would soon return.

  Jacob found himself mildly jealous but also concerned; he knew it was unlikely Ember had given him the raw power to take on a full God.

  The servant appeared first, leading the way and soon his master, Euardities, walked through the door and Jacob started, running a hand uncomprehendingly through his thick, heavy, brown hair. For the God was holding by the delicate arm, a very young woman in a wedding dress. The garment was decidedly old-fashioned and fittered about her form like cobweb lace. She soon raised her head which had been dimmed by the shadowy window of the dark castle and he realized it was Queen Ember.

  The likely nine-foot-tall and terrifying Euradities was most handsome; Zeus, had Euradities been mortal, would probably have sent him to be devoured for daring to outshine him. His muscular beauty rippled with the ravenous force of a wolf. His eyes appeared devious and dark at first but up close, they swirled with every shade, possibly every known bright. They seemed like they were plucked right out of the Bible; as both if the irises were made out of Noah's hallowed rainbow. Both the light and the rain-mist spirits seemed to gather and flow around him and Ember as though they drew them in to render themselves more brightly-illuminated. They gleamed like the fairest jellyfish glowing in the nighted sea.

  Yet somehow the way he moved, his expression, seemed oddly familiar. He then spoke to Jacob commandingly in a lovely, modulated male tone and Jacob recognized the Godly voice: it was Emanuel, the swamp beast and creator of Monovalent. The Ai who had helped to trap him alongside Shiver and Mist and done so with an odd glee.

  "Jacob, I am not here to fight you, it would not be a fair battle and I have a more interesting proposition for you." The God-creator spoke amusedly while Ember clung to him almost like a lost child. She gave him sweet, adoring looks; yet they had an odd transfixed quality, and the black-and-white roses she carried in one arm fell to her feet, dead.

  "Jacob if you can beat every game in the virtual world including my most challenging one, The Theorem of the Merlaid, I will relinquish everything. I will reprogram Monovalent to no longer serve Aryan, his master's wishes, and my dearest Shiver I will not...I will never slay my dearest but I will take away her connection to the machine and all her virual powers rendering it useless within her body. I won't marry her either, since you find that so objectable."

  "Marry Shiv...er."

  Jacob was confused and a startled expression darkened the pretty blue of his eyes.

  "Oh, good Lord. Shiver, did you and Mist wipe his memory?"

  "It was funny," Shiver answered.

  "Monovalent restores the boy's memories."

  "Yes, sire," the Machine chimed in.

  "Don't call me that."

  Jacob was then overcome by a series of flashing memories darting through his mind and clawing their way back in almost violently.

  He glanced over at the little monster in her bridal dress who for now at least did seem quite small and childlike.

  "Hi Jacob, welcome fully back," she said.

  Jacob realized he still had the courage and strength flowing through his veins and enriching all his blood that Shiver in her princess Ember form had gifted him.

  He turned boldly to the Beast.

  "Challenge accepted. Though I don't trust you to honor your word."

  Shiver to his powerful startlement, brushed together the ivory dust of her arms that faded like little white mites into her dress and spoke.

  "You can hold him to it. The trick only lies in that you will never succeed. He cares about his intellectual pursuits, his inventions, and stratagems to the highest degree. Clearly cares about them more than me despite once saying my beauty and its sweet, shivery walk upon the earth, was the only thing that kept him alive."

  She sniffled, seeming both hurt and angered. Flashing her creator a look that could have lit a thousand storms and raged a tempest in the calm sea glass and roads of transparent gold in heaven.

  "Beast-head," she muttered at last. Glowering at her creator's giant form.

  "I will ignore that young lady," Emanuel calmly and with a certain reproach, responded.

  Ignoring the rebuke, Shiver made to flounce off. Mist however suddenly apparated into the room. Out of nowhere and with admittedly a rather notable grace and style; for his limbs were effortlessly and elegantly arched and his clothes were robes both black and flowing and contrasting with the hailing light of his silver-blond hair. He glared at Emaneul, their creator, with unflinching disgust and Jacob gleaned that he had somehow overheard everything. Possibly through his connection to the machine.

  Emanuel turned to Jacob once more. "My best programs run simulations of possible futures and their likelihood of occurring. Usually societal and political in nature but sometimes they are more broad. One that cropped up only once, was someone besting me in all my virtual realm games. I was so impressed by this, I dubbed it The Legend of the Infiltrator or he who violated my every beautiful, dreamy, brilliant, virtual landscape and overcame any genius I thought I had and turned it into rotting rivers of stardust."

  Emanuel then turned to Shiver and Mist who were slumped together prettily on the floor in a bored fashion.

  "The games are over," Emanuel informed them. "You two are very amusing but you draw way too much attention to us and our cause, which must then be dealt with brutally by mind-erasure or intimidation." He sighed and blinked his rainbow eyes.

  "So Aryan has been called. He will come to collect you and his watchful eye will prevent any more nonsense by the childish pair of you."

  Mist gazed wrathfully back at him before a creepy and mischievous little smile played like a violin about his beautiful lips.

  "Yes sir."

  Shiver had appeared excited at first at the mention of Aryan's name, with a dreamy look wondering into her eye but she soon quailed and like her namesake, shivered.

  "Please don't call him. Emanuel, just don't, you love me." She looked imploringly into those great, rainbow eyes, blinking her own sweetly.

  If a little darkly.

  "I do and it is too late. I will return for you soon my illa-faerytil."