The silver woman was silent, but the silence spoke volumes. She shrieked in silence, every one hundredth of a second of imagined sound a test of every possibility and detail in her surroundings. A machine testing every possible password before the right answer was found, except the system being broken into was reality, and ‘every’ encompassed multiple dimensions and millions of people.

And that silver woman was so much weaker and smaller than the Titan she faced. Titan Fortuna, named such so that the little girl who had found the forward-looking eye could fulfill her promise to herself, that when all of this was over, she could be Fortuna again.

If the silver woman could cheat her way to the answers, then the Titan had the answers on a sheet in front of her.

But she had to ask: how long had the sheet been there? Had the answers been tampered with? Were there details that needed investigating?

She could check of course. The answer to that question was on the sheet. But in the time it took to find it, there could be more tampering, more details changed.

She already had the answer, that the silver woman had tampered. But where? She checked, and she found the answers.

A path that began with Auger fighting that was intended to end with her networked to all Titans, ready to end this world and scattered haphazardly and limping to other stars and planets… instead ended with this silver woman in control of the network, humanity mad and savage.

A path that began with the host Valkyrie being made Titan, intended to end with the network largely complete, the silver woman dead, and the scattering due to happen in ten years… instead ended with the silver woman in control of the network, half of humanity deranged and fighting the other half. To investigate why took time that the silver woman could use to gain purchase elsewhere.

A path that began with humanity devastated and dying of plague, the silver woman denied her pawns, the Titans assimilated into a greater cluster where Titan Fortuna herself was not in charge… instead ended with the silver woman in control of the network, a new, artificial humanity being created as playthings.

She checked again. A path that began with physically attacking the silver woman… ended in the silver woman in control of the remainder of the network, humanity in tatters.

Every route she investigated was seeded with false data, poisoned fruit, and patches of shadow that lay over the path, the far side of those patches ruled over by the silver woman.

Neither one moving, they calculated, they planned, they counter-planned.

She saw a thousand more paths that ended with the silver woman ruling, despite the fact the silver woman had a fraction of her strength.