The Illusion of Choice

Sometimes, honour and bravery can win a reprieve from destiny. A story of hope and despair, as Artificial intelligences, posthumans, and other minds struggle against their fates.

Amongst other events... The too-biological Zee leaves, feeling the call of an older blessing than the ones her peers have received. An old man, who knows more than he should, arrives at the school, to try and show Zu that here is a path other than the one others have demanded of...
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Sometimes, honour and bravery can win a reprieve from destiny. A story of hope and despair, as Artificial intelligences, posthumans, and other minds struggle against their fates.

Amongst other events...
The too-biological Zee leaves, feeling the call of an older blessing than the ones her peers have received.
An old man, who knows more than he should, arrives at the school, to try and show Zu that here is a path other than the one others have demanded of him.
Hofstadter, the AI in the form of a teddy bear, begins her own complex journey into being.
A life that could have been filled with light is instead infected with darkness, and the Soldier passes on to his reward.

'But I need you to understand I'm doing this because I love you, and you're too important for the fate that's written for you. You need someone out there, and I'll find a way for you to come join me, but... well, it'll take a long time. But have faith. Sometimes it'll seem like I'm working against you, but I'll always be fighting against them, and for you."
She drags a hand across her eyes, dispelling the nascent tears. "I've been exploring Bios with Zoê, and in all the worlds clouds gather around you. Your path is filled with light and wonder, but someone has to stand in the darkness and protect you, make sure you don't shine so bright you just burn the world away. I'm doing this for you two, and for my own soul."
Zee, unlike Zu and the others being inducted into the Hegemony, is unable to extend her body through technology. Within the Monad, she is the being most capable of understanding humanity, of recognising mortality within the natural order.
This makes her capable of understanding the lie imprisoning her trans and posthuman classmates, but most importantly her friend Zu, the most powerful asset in Abraxas, who is to be installed as the Hegemon. With central command of the powerful new network given to Zu, Zee knows that humanity's fate depends on her friend keeping what little remains of his soul, before he fully integrates with the new weapons system and forgets what it means to doubt.

The path Zee is choosing will mean betraying everything she has been raised towards, effectively becoming a killswitch, for a relic of a dying world that only she, among all of them, can still value.

After all... They were told that their transformation would change the world, and Zee knows this to be true, but she alone can see what the rest of the room has been programmed to ignore; that the price for immortality might just be too high.
In Zu's case, can intelligent design be reversed from its course when the juggernaut of A.I, Zu's natural proclivity, has gained unrestricted momentum? As Adam, it might already be too late.