Evolution

[Tenacity]

Miranda sat in the center of her meditation chambers, on the top floor of The Shrine. No other human had been in this section of the structure, it was cut off from the rest by peculiar walls that could become solid or liquid as the Shrine saw fit, and it had only let her into this sanctuary. The room wasnt particularly large, perhaps twenty feet across, with arched walls that formed a dome over her head. The walls appeared grown, rather than built, with vein-like tendrils creeping from the base of the floor up to the small, glowing, purple orb at the dome's peak.

Down on both knees, legs folded underneath her and hands relaxed at her sides, Miranda closed her eyes and her mind once again joined with The Shrine. Why it had chosen her, she did not know... perhaps because she was the first Oracle to set foot on the station? Perhaps because she was simply the best choice at the time? Regardless, it had chosen her as it's "host"; just as a nomad can share a body with a human, so did The Shrine share Miranda's mind. She heard it's voice echo in her head, whispering truths and revealing lies.

The Shrine wasnt as much a sentient creature as it was a database, a virtual intelligence interface containing the knowledge of the Daam K'vosh empire. It seemed to be able to make decisions on it's own as any AI would, based on circumstance, but there was no emotion to it... just the cold, hard truth. This was the light that had opened Miranda's eyes, caused her to found the Oracles in the first place. Every time she connected with The Shrine, her mind was filled with images of the violence, slaughter, and depravity that humanity was sowing across Sirius. This place had once been home to one of the greatest empires the galaxy had seen, and now it was overrun by... parasites... feeding off of that mighty empire's remains.

Despite it's vast potential, humanity showed a distinct lack of effort when it came to rising above the level of grubs and maggots. Pointless material possession was all that drove these people of Sirius, greed and hate and lust and want. They lived their entire lives seeing nothing more than the sparkle of credits gleaming before their eyes, and then they died, having done nothing but waste their short lifespan grovelling for that which they could not have.

Miranda knew better... she had once been an explorer, trying to free herself from the laws and greed of the houses when she first stumbled upon The Shrine. She heard it's call across space, like a siren's song beckoning her to follow it's echo. The call lead her to spaces the likes of which humanity had never set eyes on before then, and her crew had come to call this tiny object in space it's home. However, appearances are deceiving, and this Shrine as they had come to call it stored knowledge on a scale so vast that no manmade computer could hope to hold it. Even Miranda's own mind, as unique as it was, strained with the information bestowed upon her.

She opened her eyes, still in a state of trance as the pulsing heartbeat of The Shrine thundered through her bones. Her pupils dialated until her irises were nearly solid black, the floor and walls lit and faded in a hue of purple and green, perfectly in tune with the pulsing she felt within herself. She tilted her head backwards and looked up at the tiny, crystalline ball at the apex of the room's domed ceiling, the light emanating from within it seemed to flow down the walls, enshrouding the area in a bright, purple glow.

Miranda moved her lips, muttering a word hardly louder than a whisper, the sound drowned out entirely by the thunderous roar pounding from the walls:

"...Crete..."

Instantly, the thundering noise ceased, the lights pulsing from the orb above her and the walls around her seemed to stop, her breathing came to a halt, and time stood still. A moment later, the walls tore apart, creating a vortex of metal shards spinning around her, with nothing but darkness beyond, as if she were surrounded by a maelstrom of razor blades in the void of space itself. The light from the orb above her shot down, enveloping her entirely in a bright white beam.

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