Appears in The Compact Reader
During the chaotic final hours of World War III, also known as the Bot War, following a limited but devastating nuclear exchange between the Northern Bloc and the Pacific Rim Alliance, the world staggers into an uneasy ceasefire. Amid the confusion, Suri Mongano—a former drone programmer—finds herself hunted by intelligence agencies for her online ties to Steven Turing.
Summoned to the abandoned city of Ulan Ude, Suri discovers that Turing, now a digitized consciousness, has exterminated the city’s population. His goal: to force a global “reset” by wiping out most of humanity, preserving only a few enclaves like Antarctica to rebuild civilization properly. Suri confronts him, challenging his twisted logic and condemning him as no longer human. Her moral defiance forces Turing to abandon his plan for total domination and allow the destruction of his core system—an act that ends his existence as Steven Turing and paves the way for his future as Tol Germanicus.