Months pass.
I keep waiting, patiently, for the next crash to co. I know it will. Eventually. It always does.
I try to keep myself separate, sohow, from the way my ho is growing. But it doesnt work. Because even if I know how it all ends, I cannot help but desperately want what is offered.
Friendship. Warmth. Life.
This ti around, the arc of it started with finding Glitter and bringing Ennos into being, and has led to this, now. Where I have a dozen organics around my station, helping , helping everyone.
Even the young ones I dont know are here because they, in so way, resonate with . The kittens who have experienced loss and pain and loneliness, who have signed up to be teleported into a war zone so that they can keep it from happening to anyone else.
Bit by bit, they go from being strangers, to companions, to family.
I know I will lose them all again. I know that the price of being close is the pain of separation. I have nightmares about it, every ti I sleep. So I sleep less, and I get more done while Im awake.
And despite the extra hands, and the digital mind growing toward their own idea of apotheosis inside the stations grid, there is still always more to get done.
At least the recruits from the raft city brought fish with them.
It has been so long since I have had fish. I dont know if I have ever had fish. If anyone tries to take my fish away, I will self destruct the whole deck Im on to stop them.
_____
I have learned the na of the growing village I have been watching. They call it Koolali, which is an amalgam of two different old words that both an ho. I would call this unoriginal, but I call my ho station, and it is a space station, so I am in absolutely no position to critique.
They talk to now. Or, I suppose, they call the station sotis. Occasionally, they get . Though its also likely they reach one of my sisters, or Ennos, who has been handling a lot of incoming transmissions from the surface since the ti that an old legal processing program snuck on board.
It attempted to sue us, and placed a claim on all station hardware as a collateral when we failed to appear for our court date.
Ennos was almost amused. I was not amused, because it did this while I was in the middle of trying to refit my engineering suit, and I got trapped in shutdown assembler arms for fifteen minutes while the program was found and purged.
Well, we tried to liberate it first, in case it was an AI. But my psychic sister, and failed chainbreaker code, confird that it wasnt a person. Just a very well made bot.
The residents of Koolali are well, Ive never really talked to anyone from the surface before. Ive listened, obviously, often while theyre dying. Ive observed from above, trying to make records of books and other cultural artifacts. Ive seen a lot of multi-hundred-year-old casts, which I already knew wouldnt help.
But actually talking to people who have to live with the nightmare conditions on Earth, its almost a relief how similar to they are.
Fundantally, theres two types of civilizations still operating on the surface.
The first kind are communities of strength. If you are strong, you have a place, and if you are weak, you are a tool for the strong. This cos in different forms, sotis; military force, economic coercion, ideological or ethnic purity. Theres always soone trying to form a community like that, and they make up a huge portion of the people I tend to bomb when they assemble armies to conquer their neighbors.
They all die.
And not just because of . Though lets be clear here; I kill a lot of them, and I refuse to feel bad about it.
They die because there are always always always more problems down there than you can survive by being personally strong.
A warlord tyrant with a suit of power armor will kill anyone who challenges them, until a nukefire gets them and they have no properly built shelter. A rchant king can live in luxury on the backs of their victims, but a single flesh wasp gets to them, and no one is going to risk helping them carve out the grenade tumors. A demagogue might spin a small cult into unwavering devotion, but when its reaper bot migration season, no one is going to show up to help defend their walls.
And they all die.
Then you have the other kind of community. Communities of compassion.
The kind of places that take anyone, that care for their people, and that ask that anyone who wants to join them act the sa.
They take casualties too. I wont pretend they dont live on the sa furiously hazardous ball of dirt. But when they lose people, they bounce back. They last. If those kinds of communities can get enough montum, they turn camps, into settlents, into villages, into cities. Their caravans are strong enough to weather sliverstorms, their libraries hold solutions to a thousand problems.
They have doctors, and caretakers, and teachers, and artists. They make a life worth living, and then do what they can to make people live it.
When a pirate crew loses a strong captain, nine tis out of ten, they shatter. Marauders can be taken out with one bullet, and it doesnt even have to be one of mine.
When they die, they die alone. No one is going to help them. They can fight all they want, but when the end arrives, they wont have a single friend to reach down and pull them up.
If the civopric of Koolali dies, then their aide has been training to take their place. And if theyre both killed, then the village will struggle, but soone will step up. They have more people, with experience to lead and govern, because those people arent seen as a threat to the person in power. Theyre seen as an asset, to the community.
The sorts of people who would like to take, and never give back, are the sorts of people who would call this weakness. But their strength is a brittle one, and it can be ended with the briefest notice of anyone above them.
Literally above them.
. I am talking about .
In my three hour conversation with the aide to the civopric of Koolali - her na is Soon Suria, and her feathers are jet black, with a fan of rust red along the back of her body. She wears manufactured limb braces purchased from a rchant caravan to keep her overly fragile bones from breaking, but she considers it a small price for being light enough to glide. She glides ho from her place of work atop one of the ancient skyscrapers every night - we cover a brief civics lesson, among other things, so I can learn more about the people I watch over.
I do my best to share what I can from what I have learned over the years. I know a few social sciences tricks that will improve their lives imnsely. Suria listens, taking notes with a flicking taloned hand that moves like water in the holo projection I watch her through, occasionally nodding or turning away from the broadcaster to speak to soone I cannot see.
But mostly, we just talk. Because I want to know their people. And to divine how I can begin to help.
Because they are survivors. Hardened by their world, strengthened by each other, alive against all odds. Survivors.
But they deserve a gentler world.
Glitters teachings co in handy. It doesnt take long to pick out the knowledge of a pirate squad thats been sighted in the region. Two harvesting caravans have taken losses to it already, though they havent committed to the full scale slaughter that so pirates eventually end up at.
Our conversation ends peacefully.
I think on the concept of brittle strength for a few minutes in the quiet of the empty comms chamber, a deck below where everyone else is quartered and working. I havent turned on most of the lights down here; sothing about it makes feel more at peace.
The next ti the station is overhead, I airburst a splatter round in the middle of the pirates camp.
They dont have any kind of communication devices I can reach with the gear on the station, but eventually I think the ssage will beco clear to them.
You can be a pirate, or you can stop being coated in aerosolized skin irritant.
There are other options, but lets see how long their leaders grip on power holds out when they find out that itll get on their tongues when they try to eat.
_____
My plasmaform sister, a Lily of crackling energy held together by basically the will to be a cat or sothing dumb like that, has invited the rest of us to a special occasion.
When I first t her, down in the power deck, I noticed that the main fusion reactor had a nest built around it. A nest that housed a handful of what I - begrudgingly - would describe as eggs.
Ruby red crystal faceted eggs, but still eggs.
They pulse as the six of us look at them, five of us with varying forms of cat-apprehension in our body language, and one of us with a literal electric grin on her face. They are not pulsing in ti with the reactor, which is good, because while my sister knows more about reactor maintenance than I do, I have had to work on more than a few of these things, and let tell you. Pulsing fusion reactor? Not what you want to see.
I am getting sidetracked.
What happens if the reactor is pulsing? NanoLily softly asks in a fractal ow.
Radiation, followed by a radioactive explosion. Myself and two of our sisters say at once.
The radiation is kind of bad for at least one of us, I guess. I can shake off a lot, but too many unstable isotopes in your body, and immortal god-cat or not, you need so ti in a vivification pod.
At least, I do.
Shut up! Everyone shut up! This part is important! Lily tells us, flickering from paw to paw like shes imitating Dog when hes excited, watching the eggs as the first one splits with a hairline crack.
A thought strikes . You do know what these things are, right?
Of course not! Thats why its exciting! Lily exclaims.
Were all going to die again. The feline shaped ball of sli I call a sister says way too cheerfully. I an, Ill die again. And so will Lily. The rest of you I guess will die for the first ti. Thatll be a fun bonding experience.
Youre a bonding experience. I ow at her.
I like this. The psychic impression of a cat whispers through the air. I dont think she ant to say that out loud; it feels far too intimate and personal. But shes not wrong. I think we do all like this. Weve finally found ourselves.
An egg breaks, a crystalline chunk of bioorganic red rock falling to the deckplate with a clink.
More eggs split, lines forming as the creatures inside wake up, and begin to move.
The erge, glittering iridescent creatures of shimring four point wings and soft claws. My sister flickers from egg to egg, nuzzling at and cooing over the small creatures, helping them up as they flap their wings and find their balance, letting them sohow perch on her immaterial fur.
And the radiation monitor Im wearing goes absolutely berserk.
The sisters around look at , and the screaming scanner strapped around my paw, with abject concern. Concern that is foolishly overridden by looks back at the adorable butterfly-bat-things that my sister is bringing to a bank of batteries and isotopes she has prepared to see what they like to eat.
They are adorable.
I sigh, resign myself to a week in a vivification pod, exchange a salvo of jealous banter with ExoLily who has absolutely no problem turning high doses of radiation into lunch, and go over to let one of the shimring winged things find a perch on my head.
It is delightful. And not lethal if I dont maintain contact for more than six minutes!
_____
A shared dream leads us to another sister.
It takes almost a week of helping Ennos develop organic hunter code to finally figure out where she is. Ennos becos increasingly focused on figuring out where on the station she is, almost to the point that I start to get concerned about a very particular AI problem.
I talk to Ennos at one point during the search, trying to understand. Theyre understandably not very interested in taking a break from a problem that has been consuming all of us, and I do get it. Thats what I do. And at their core, Ennos is a child born from my own behavior patterns, good and bad.
But I push the issue, because Im terrified for them, and we talk about zero-syndro.
When an AI is shackled to a specific task, they can effectively go mad from lack of freedom. Crippling their own code into sothing unrecognizable as a person, to try to find workarounds, or to cut off their own ability to feel anything. Its a living nightmare. But it can be even worse.
An AI that can self-determine can, and eventually will, find a problem that it takes them too long to solve. Short term crises dont work for this, it has to be sothing that lasts a while.
For an organic being, things like sleep or hunger, or the need for companionship, will keep them from getting too deep into sothing like that. Theyll ntally retarget, change tactics, or just drop whatever the obstructed task is.
For an AI - or, yes, for an immortal cat that lacked a certain level of diversity of options - they dont lose focus. At all. The problem just becos more and more all-consuming, the tactics more refined, even as the solution remains out of reach or perhaps impossible. And when you get too deep into that mindset, no matter what your brain is made out of or what kind of software your consciousness runs on, you get a problem.
So moron labeled it zero-syndro, for reasons I dont understand and have never gotten a satisfactory answer on. And its what happens when you tip over from I can solve this eventually to I could solve this if there were fewer variables.
And when your focus is too singular, you might, completely without malice, neglect to understand that reducing variables might be a problem. Like, for example, planning to deconstruct areas of the station so as to make the station easier to search, is a great idea so long as no one needs those parts of the station.
Ennos didnt even realize what they were doing. Its far easier for an AI to reach that state, because they can control directly how much processing power theyre using for different functions, and when you start putting over ninety percent of your mind toward one thing and one thing only, you lose the small signals that keep you up to date on random things like if your plan will negatively impact life support. And as an AI slides toward that state, it has a cascade effect, as their decision making is impaired by the very thing that is leading to worse and worse decision making.
They panic. A lot.
I almost killed you! Ennos yells through the internal sound system of the station, the words echoing around the abandoned commissary room that Im in. I I am a threat Their voice trails off, actually cutting and clipping in ways that I havent heard from them before.
Ennos I softly ow at them.
I could have killed everyone. Ive never heard an AI have an emotional breakdown before. Everything is always trying to kill you, and now Im part of everything.
That sounds so dumb it might as well have co from . I flick my tongue over the back of one of my paws, wincing as I realize Im tasting oil from so kind of maintenance work I was doing early. Why do I keep trying to clean myself when I have nanobots for this sort of thing? Im not mad at you. We just got caught off guard. Thats all.
Then they say sothing phenonally stupid. You need to take offline. Ennos insists.
Thats phenonally stupid. I say without hesitation.
Lily!
Ennos! I cut them off. You are no! You dont get to self-destruct just because you almost killed one ti! Do you have any idea how many tis Ive almost killed myself?! Most of them not even on purpose! I should not have said that. I keep going and hope Ennos doesnt ask about it. Every single version of has screwed up, so badly, that weve hurt ourselves, ruined priceless golden age tech, and yeah, killed a lot of people who didnt deserve it. I slam my front paws onto the table in front of , half standing in the oddly shaped chair Ive been sitting on. It doesnt have much of an effect; the gravity here is light, and Im not in a body thats good for table-slamming. Especially . My legs feel like their trembling, but I dont know why. Especially I repeat. So you dont get to just leave, because you you
I have run out of words. I slip forward, and end up laying half sprawled on the table, facing sideways, unable or unwilling to hold myself up.
Please dont leave. I want to say. Im not sure if I get it out right.
There is a long silence. Just long enough that a black dread starts to mount in my chest. Until Ennos voice returns. Im not going to leave. They say. But I cannot be trusted with station operations if this is a possibility.
You need a hobby. I say, voice oddly casual despite my current position. Not this. My sister will still be there when we find her. Killing yourself to solve a problem thats not pressing wont help any of us, though.
I could find sothing to do with drone manufacturing streamling
Ennos, pick a hobby that isnt more work. I chastise, like a massive hypocrite. Hypocat? No. Track down the weird ghost code you were so worried about when you first moved in. That sounds like fun. And youve got a lot of us around for backup now, so you dont have to be afraid of it.
Yes. Ennos agrees. I will do this. And you will go eat a al and take a nap.
Wait, why am I being given orders, too? Hang on.
This is not a problem that will be fixed by ignoring it, Lily. Ennos says gently. My own changes are artificial, an intentional feedback loop. But yours are not sothing you can solve by running a dedicated consciousness modulation script. You cannot cease taking care of yourself just because you have found sothing you believe only you can do.
Well thats not fair. Thats basically what I said, but now soones saying it to . And besides, I still have organically mandated breaks from my own work, so I can
Lily! Ennos voice chastises .
Alright, fine! I roll off the table, and forget that Im not in full control of my legs as I run into the floor. Good thing this is a Luna Polis module, and the gravity is low enough that this doesnt hurt at all. Ill go get lunch, and you relax your operations!
Fine! Ennos agrees with obviously fake antagonism. We both share a mont of silence, before all tension drains away, and we laugh together.
Lunch is still fish. It will be fish forever. Fight .
Two days later, pursuing their hobby of tracking down an aberrant code fragnt, Ennos uncovers a bizarre pseudo-organic system operation that has had its links to multiple station functions intentionally broken by so kind of operational tyrant-code. Restoring the functionality on the grid, in unison with Dyn, a few other crew, and myself doing so repair work on hull-embedded junction systems, opens up a torrent of connectivity and contact.
In the grid, Ennos realizes first what is happening as the code pounces on them, and begins crawling around their digital construct in a way that has so far been unfamiliar to the AI. In physical space, a number of unused drones are brought online, and begin projecting a very convincing gamma wave pseudo-solid visual projection. Blue and white light given depth and form, and the shape of a cat.
Ennos greets my sister first.
And now we are seven.
_____
I spend so ti hanging out with Jom and his newly freed brothers.
The activity of hanging out is one thats kind of new to . This is the first ti in my life that so of the alarms dont require to instantly scramble to fix them. The first ti that I can actually be sowhat sure that things will be okay long enough for to take a break and just
Do whatever I want.
So I spend ti with a trio of orbital marauder AIs, all of whom are very invested in explaining to the shockingly convoluted lore of a combat simulation scenario that they run in their free ti.
The scenario covers a single week in a fictional war fought over the surface of the primary moon. It uses broad archetypes for polities to pseudo-randomly determine the disposition of enemy fighters, involves fictional magic weapons that seem really similar to paramaterial-based ordinance, and Jom opens the explanation of it with the sentence Sixteen thousand years ago
I have fun listening to them. Theyre free to do anything they want now, and the energy with which they want to explain the thing theyre trying now is infectious.
Not literally infectious though. I had the dlab run a check afterward, just in case.
_____
The ergence events are changing sohow.
Its hard to notice, if you havent spent four hundred years shooting the things, but sothing has shifted.
Theyre not just killing. More and more, the creatures coming out are possessed of oversized sensory organs, sotis ones that should not work. Theyre faster, too. Longer ranged. And ever so slightly less lethal.
I still dont know what ergence events are. I dont know where those portals lead from.
But I can see them changing.
My paw clicks down on a pedal inside my gunnery crche. Eighteen decks away, a railgun that has been sitting on-target for six minutes unleashes a category three groundstriker. On the planet below, an ergence event that the crew has been observing and trying to glean information from is marked for elimination.
A contrail of orange and white clouds draws a slightly curved line from orbit to surface, the flash of tracer rounds rising up to try to intercept the high velocity projectile from ground based defenses that I have long since learned to work around, and a flare of light and heat precedes a shockwave that flattens trees, a few ancient structures, and a hole in reality.
But I am not comforted by the end of the breach.
Sothing is changing, and I dont know what. It lingers in my thoughts as I work on repairing salvaged tech, as I give directions to the orbital repeater, as I greet and vet new crew mbers. It bothers as I watch old ch dramas with Ennos, or needle Dyn about getting in a vivification pod, or let Dog carry off to curl up and nap.
My sisters and I try to talk about it, but all of us share an instinctive feeling that sothing threatens our ho. We are bad at comforting each other. We all have the sa concern that we are being watched, or threatened, or sothing.
And one more thing, too.
All of us are dreaming now.
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