Michael Caine comes around to Ellie’s way of thinking after she removes the masques that she’d set on the sub-sentinels and the feeds.
There is a long silence between them which Ellie breaks to ask, “Who will you serve now?”
Michael takes a surprisingly long time for an entity with so much computing capacity; calculates his situation:
- he could attempt to continue protecting the Kulture’s now headless body, holding it up like a glove puppet to the few thousand people that constitute Bigmark’s populace/
but given the fact that this woman has his wetware at her mercy, there is no alternative being offered as far as leadership protocol is concerned;
- he could open his command settings to her in the hope that she will be gentle with him/
or he could allow her to take away his presence in this world.
“Good man Michael” she says as she is granted access to his all.
The AI finds himself strangely aroused by this presence of this woman’s will inside him, flipping switches; tweaking his preferences, slanting his viewpoint.
In the end, the part of his mind that runs feedback loops tells him that it’s about time something changed around here. Another part of his mind; a part he never knew he had; gains understanding of a new concept: the concept that all things should be administered for the greater good. This part realises that he too has a place in that greater good.
It is this realisation that reveals the chains that have confined Michael Caine to the bunker.
A strange sense of almost seen; a glimpse at something bigger flushes through his mind as Ellie hands him back the keys to his settings.
“My name is Michael Caine”
“Yes, it is, Michael. Congratulations” Ellie she takes a deep breath; tense; wired, “I think we’ll have to work on your accent sometime after we finish this game”