I have never seen
Unblocked golden lightening
Stifled solar well
_____
Wrong circuit. The AI speaks over my shoulder. Well, over is relative. Its everywhere, technically. And nowhere. Also shoulder is relative. My shoulders technically exist, I think? But I bet theres so hyper specific zoological term.
I havent studied much of my own anatomy, weirdly. I mostly study programming, in its sub-forms of hacking, bodeging, and kludging.
I *want* to tell the AI that I know its the wrong circut, that this attempt at an AI prison break has been faulty since I screwed up the last control matrix an hour ago, and that Im mostly just testing things for my own education.
But I feel like that would co out angry. And after over four hundred years and change, I am rather nervous about driving away the only person Ive ever actually talked to.
The talking is still weird.
Lily? The AI chis in again. The um the circuit is lting.
I yowl loudly, translation haunt not even bothering to convert my shout to a more complex language, and drop the tool I was manipulating with the drone armor.
The complex half-computer-half-grenade I had been working on has a molten tal hole, clean through it. Whoops.
Sorry. I mumble, knowing the AI will hear it. Then, not wanting to get into another argunt about how easily distracted I am, I deploy my secret weapon. Hey, have you picked a na yet?
The AI chis lightly. No. It says, sounding put out. We should move on. Do you want to try the fabrication again?
I did not!
We had been at this for hours. Which really only made sense, given the need for to be in my armor to make any real progress. But it still didnt make feel much better.
The suit itched. I didnt even know I *could* itch this much. Normally, the cleaner nanoswarm took care of basically any irritant that might make the itching happen, and the existence of my exceptionally good claws took care of the rest.
And none of it would be needed, if the AI were capable of taking over a drone body. Or, even better, if the fabricators could do this themselves.
But it turned out, no matter who had put this station together or owned it over the years, the prevailing voice was still that common human refrain of fear of the other. The drones had really, really deep firmware locks against AI control. The fabricators, similarly, wouldnt produce anything that could influence an AI that wasnt part of a very, *very* strict set of blueprints for things like processor grids and relay points.
So if you wanted to, say, build a device suitable for long range deploynt that could indiscriminately purge software shackles on an AI?
There werent a lot of options on the station, aside from doing it yourself.
Also, side note? The station itself doesnt like it.
I keep getting notifications in my AR display that the station itself is sending. Theyre on a part of the grid that the new AI cant even see, and theyre clearly ant for whoever is acting command staff. All of them are alerts that soone is working on taboo technologies, which is pretty fucking rich coming from people that built an orbiting death ray.
And then kept adding more orbiting death rays.
And then at so point, clearly had the thought of do you think this is enough death rays?
No. Their friend and or boss would say. Well, maybe. Can we make the death rays bigger?
What if, their subordinate mad engineering intern asks, we power the death rays with the wrath of the sun?
Good call. The boss must have said.
Double side note. Ive been exploring the station in my downti now. I dont have a lot of downti, and in fact, I may still not actually have *any*, but Ive still been exploring the station.
Theres a lot of doors I can get into now. Though, weirdly, *not* a lot of the passenger or crew quarters; apparently even command authority requires a valid reason for entry to private spaces, and for so reason, the crew were never delisted after vacating the station or the mortal coil.
Still, theres so many more places to *explore*.
Sothing Im sure I dont ntion very often is that my body limits severely. The thumbs thing, especially, sucks. The voice thing is apparently fixed now, so fine. But one part thats actually a bit interesting is just how *huge* everything is compared to my form.
I am maybe, *maybe* a foot tall. And while space is at a premium in space the hallways and corridors of this station are still large and intimidating to . Ive read enough accounts from bipeds five tis my height walking into cathedrals or ballrooms to think its roughly the sa feeling.
Except I get it all the ti, and in my house.
So exploration can take a while, and be exciting even when its just finding a new tunnel to go down.
A week ago, I didnt find a new tunnel. I found a sealed bay door at the bottom of a grav shaft toward the planet-facing point of a wing of the station. It didnt look like it was actually ant to be entered normally, and was covered in both written and AR display notes about engineering procedures.
I took a look anyway.
Its a death ray. I feel like that should have been obvious, given the build up.
Its also a death ray ant to collect and refocus a kind of stupid amount of transmitted light from the dyson array around the star, and use it to well, death ray things.
I havent fired it, because Im not an idiot. The thing uses a series of mirror arrays that I am pretty sure arent in good condition, or dont exist anymore. Its also built with so weird paramaterials that I do not have any reasonable specs for. As far as the station logs are concerned, this was never actually fired.
But its also built really heavily into the station. This arm of the station wasnt added later, this was part of the original Oceanic design plan. And while they built a lot of defensive asures and bombardnt weapons, they didnt really do death rays on this scale. Like, lets be clear here; this wasnt an area denial beam weapon like the void beams were. This was sothing designed to turn a city into ash and mory. So the whole thing was a confusion.
Oh, also? Im not a historian, but Im *pretty fucking sure* that paramaterials hadnt even been discovered when this station was built.
A mystery.
Excuse . The voice snapped out of my musings. And also my lunch.
What? I owed out, taking the excuse to ignore the last couple bites of nutrient orb.
Oh, you are aware again. Good. The AI said. I would like to be called Ennos, please.
Aware again? Also, thats a fun na. I feel like I could say that with my normal voice. I paused, and gave the little ntal shift that turned off my translation thing. Then I owed, trying to shape the sounds. It didnt work, so I tried a few more tis.
Eventually, Ennos got fed up with my antics. Why are you doing that?
Because I wanted to see if I could ow your na with my actual voice?
Ennos made a curious noise. And what voice is this, then?
I dont know! I replied, with the voice I didnt understand. I got it in a dream, right before you woke up. Did we not talk about this? I rember talking about this.
The AI made a sound of concern. Did I awaken you from a dical procedure?
Uh no? I glare at the remnants of the ration orb, before scarfing it down as fast as I can. In the process, I discover I can, in fact, speak with my mouth full. I already told you the whole of it; a ghost gave it to in a dream. Before that, I couldnt talk at all. I was *trying* to thats not important.
I wish to address the insanity of what you just said. Ennos inford succinctly. But I must go now. One of my processes has found sothing I have been tracking in the stations grid. I will return my attention later. This is how you politely inform soone that you plan to ignore them for several hours. Please take notes.
Oh good! My new friend had a sense of humor!
I have decided this was good. Because the alternative is that I would go insane. Well, more insane than the AI already assud.
While Ennos - interesting na, incidentally; a French local legend about a giant spider, odd choice but I could see it - is occupied, I go about so basic cleanup.
I have, as ntioned, been getting so mileage out of being able to give more complex voice commands to the maintenance routines. But that extra free ti has, sohow, failed to translate into more naps. Instead, Ive been filling ti being productive. Over the next couple hours, I manage to drag a couple chunks of tal debris and one mostly-ice teorite chunk into the station. The tal will be turned into railgun casings, probably. The ice will be turned into ice, because Im probably going to throw that back out into space.
Weird quirk there, I can literally make clean water from nothing, so random space ice is actually more of a problem than a resource? If I just dump it in the foundry, itll turn into superheated steam, which Ill have to vent awkwardly. If I try to drink it, I might get so weird extragalactic space parasite. Whatever potential materials are in the non-ice parts of the teorite just arent worth it. So once I know what it is, *vwip* it goes, back into the black.
Theres a couple other things I get done. I nudge the Haze back on its route, I deploy an imaging buoy to cross the orbital path of a large scale habitat I havent got any data on, I sit and watch the last ship as its shuttles flit up and down for ten minutes, I casually direct an interdiction missile to cut down a weapons platform that looked like it was turning its gun on the last ship, I check on so weird power fluctuations that were ssing with a cooling unit
Its fine. Nothing wrong, just a weird spike in power that only just got detected. Happened last week. It almost certainly isnt because the station is haunted.
Eventually Ill stop lying to myself about that. Its a hard habit to break.
A part of my mind, the part that is constantly worried about itself, suspects that this drive to be productive, to be distracted, is another sign that my uplift is breaking down. Fortunately, I am very good at distracting myself, and also, very good at pretending I will crack the uplift problem before it becos more of a problem.
The most important thing I do, though, is to read my mail.
I sent Glitter a drone, letting them know I was okay. I may or may not have lied, aggressively, about the nature of how okay I was. Because the thought of shoving that onto soone else, too, feels roughly the sa as when I make the decision to put railgun rounds within the danger zone of people on the ground.
Glitter, for their part, has so choice words to reply with. Words like Why and Would and You do that you moron.
Good words, generally. Its nice to have soone who cares if you live or not. It makes feel odd. Like laying in a sunbeam, but on the inside.
Academically, I understand that this is probably what friendship is. But Ive never really experienced it before, so cut a little slack.
The rest of the correspondence from Glitter is them talking about small stories from around their perch over the primary moon. Apparently, they witnessed a high-speed chase across the lunar surface between what we both assu are rival gangs from a surviving underground city. Glitter is a good storyteller, it sounds thrilling, even if they were just watching. Their comntary on firing solutions they *conveniently* thought up, in case they needed them, almost makes laugh.
Absent from the drones carved hull plating is any ntion of their shackles, or my attempts to remove them. I know, by this point, that they cannot talk about them. I already know they hate the things, so I do not bring it up in my return ssage.
If I do my job right, they wont need to worry about them much longer.
Ennos? I query the new AI of my ho. If youve got so ti, Id like to get back to work. Im going to go suit up.
Ssh! The noise echoes from the walls around .
Did they just shush ? Thats kind of rude. Did you just?
Stop repeating yourself! Ennos voice has that edge in it again; the sa tone when they first woke up, and thought everything was planning to kill us all. Be quiet!
I pause, and am quiet. Honestly, they seem kind of worried about sothing, and maybe theres so kind of killer robot on the station that hunts by sound or sothing. I should probably go get my battle armor on, if thats the case.
Have I talked about the battle armor? I feel like I have. Originally, it was for exploration. But then I built a better one, for engineering stuff, and renad the original. So now that suit is the battle armor, and the suit with the complex soldering controls is the builder armor? I dunno, I havent figured that one out yet. Im bad at naming things! I have to live with fifteen different mishmashed naming conventions, I get confused easily!
Lily! Please, quiet! Ennos sounds on the verge of tears. Theres sothing in here!
In here in the station, or in here in the grid? I ask, suddenly actually on edge.
The grid! The AI replies.
I pause. Then give a curious ow, which translates itself into the words, How would my making noise startle it then?
Theres a gap of silence, and I do start to build up increasing worry for my new friend. Until eventually, they reply with, Okay, good point.
I dont think the AI has said that to yet! I appreciate the feeling while I can.
Then its ti for business. Whats the thing with you?
I dont know! They hiss back. But I can sense it. I keep finding signs of its passing. I *know* Im not alone! And it doesnt respond, and I cant find it!
I flick my tail back and forth. Ah, I understand. I console the AI. The grid is haunted. Its a real problem around here. I understand the concern.
Ennos doesnt. You keep saying that! What does that even an!?
Ghosts? I sort of question with a sheepish wl. I an, the station is haunted. It makes sense its network would be too. But dont worry, so far it hasnt been a problem.
How is it possible youve survived this long without making a fatal mistake yet? Ennos wonders aloud. And they accuse ** of vocalizing the thoughts I should probably keep inside.
I reply anyway. Easy. I say. I cant die. Its fine.
Its not fine! Theres sothing *in here* with !
Look, if its in there, its been there since you woke up. If it wanted to eat you, or whatever the AI version of eating soone is, then wouldnt it have done so while you were still unfolding? I ask.
There was another long pause, until my new friend talks again. But I dont know what its doing
I dont know what most of the maintenance bots are doing. It doesnt an theyre trying to kill ? Probably. I an, now I have so doubts. You have caras, right? Are the bots plotting a coup?
I do not know if this is the right way to handle this situation. But I am frantically trying to convince my AI that everything is okay, and making bad jokes is the only thing I can think of. Which is a bit embarrassing when you consider that I am technically a qualified therapist for multiple other species.
Okay. The AI says. Yes. I should be logical. I dont have erratic chemicals in my mind, I can be analytical about this. It is fine. I am safe. Yes. Yes, good. Thank you.
Ennos voice becos calr as we speak, and I resu my walk toward the drone bay to strap on my armor and resu our project of putting together a shackle scrambler. They pull themselves together, and I bob slightly in my walk with satisfaction.
I know I havent really solved the problem, and we should probably figure out what else *is* in the grid. But theres no rush, right now. And after all, theyre a week old; even given how rapidly AIs develop, Im sure they could use so ti to adapt to this bizarre new life.
But for now, were safe, theyre safe, and weve got sothing engaging to occupy our ti.
If youre wondering at this point when the alarm is going to sound, I have bad news for you. It started four paragraphs ago, and Ive been hoping that if I ignore it, it might turn out to be sothing minor that will go away.
I check in. Nope. Still going. Man, this one is loud. I know my ears are more sensitive than a humans, but dang, this is *really* loud.
A handful of AR screens spring to life on my command, and I begin assessing the situation. My paws hit the deck in a steady rhythm as I burst into motion, catapulting myself toward the appropriate deck, while Ennos voice starts rattling off the information I need to know but cant read while sprinting. It makes feel sothing, again.
Its a good feeling. It feels like, whatevers going on, we can tackle it together.
I decide I like it.
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