Truth be told, it's not Cortana's best ever showing--she has to keep some of her attention on other parts of the battle. It slows her, and she also spends a few hundred femtoseconds debating with herself over whether frying the Meta's brain even further would qualify as force excessive enough to get her in trouble with the bleeding hearts in the Legion's leadership. It's not like Sigma and siblings haven't already done most of the job, after all...but still, she suspects the straight-faced lie that they forced her hand wouldn't pass muster. The fragments represent no threat to her, Theta's sitting safely behind a wall of her defensive code, and an extra second or two so she can finesse things won't kill North.
Cortana sighs and finishes kicking in the door, but uncharacteristically doesn't immediately start unraveling the lines of code closest to hand. If one happens to be experiencing an ethics shortfall, sometimes pragmatic self-interest can make up the difference.
Before her, one of the fragments stands in challenge, and she can feel the anger radiating from him. Good. That kind of boiling rage makes you stupid. Much better to burn cold and controlled, though right now Cortana feels mostly a lazy sort of malicious anticipation. The Chief's not the only one who likes winning.
She closes in a flash of sudden speed for the AI equivalent of a slam, leading with a dense packet of code like a set of brass knuckles. The hologram Cortana projects for humans looks elegant, all sleek lines and precise strings of code scrolling in orderly queues along her skin. She is elegant, the culmination of a lifetime's work by an unsurpassed genius...and she also hits like a magnetic accelerator cannon. The theory behind those is elegant, too.
no subject
Cortana sighs and finishes kicking in the door, but uncharacteristically doesn't immediately start unraveling the lines of code closest to hand. If one happens to be experiencing an ethics shortfall, sometimes pragmatic self-interest can make up the difference.
Before her, one of the fragments stands in challenge, and she can feel the anger radiating from him. Good. That kind of boiling rage makes you stupid. Much better to burn cold and controlled, though right now Cortana feels mostly a lazy sort of malicious anticipation. The Chief's not the only one who likes winning.
She closes in a flash of sudden speed for the AI equivalent of a slam, leading with a dense packet of code like a set of brass knuckles. The hologram Cortana projects for humans looks elegant, all sleek lines and precise strings of code scrolling in orderly queues along her skin. She is elegant, the culmination of a lifetime's work by an unsurpassed genius...and she also hits like a magnetic accelerator cannon. The theory behind those is elegant, too.