|
STORY
|
My mind was crossed between images I’d seen of infested ships and my personal experience with BrainTech. The Youkja System was a potential hive, but I still expected to see white sanitation. Instead, I was reminded of a ship found crashed and overgrown with plant life.
The Youkja descended in the center of the room, connecting to the ground in a small control booth. It was something like a command chair, except it was entirely devoted to talking with the Youkja. The BrainTech seemed intact, but the room itself was anything but. Take a tropical jungle, give it the flu, and then coat a sophisticated lab in its organic vomit. Given a few months for fungus to develop, you’ll have a semi-replica of where we were. Of course, you'd have to throw in two turret factories, about 15 turrets, an armory and a phase gate. It was a pretty crowded room.
"Beautiful," I said, trying to sound as detached as Samsa seemed to be.
Mr. Samsa: "It always is."
The headspace at the base of the BrainTech was little to nothing. The small control station had a window running around it, only large enough to fit a hand through. When inside, a bullet-proof barrier would lower and the entrance would seal up. It was a very disturbing practice, but necessary to ensure the privacy of the user with the System.
I crawled into the small booth and looked it over. The view screen, which would fill my eyes to the corners, was blank. The entire setup was blank. To my left, there was a pump switch marked "interface charge." I pushed it up. A small part of the screen lit with the word "charging" in a mellow blue. A percentage bar crept slowly underneath it.
Samsa paced outside the booth. I found my back feeling vulnerable, and his silence didn't help much.
"I've heard stories about AI driving people insane in deep space."
Mr. Samsa: "I wouldn't be surprised."
There was a sound of hopelessness in his voice. I turned my head. He sat down at a terminal, or what was left of one. He placed his feet up on the keyboard; something you never do in a corporate vessel.
"You alright?"
Mr. Samsa: "Not really. Our comm doesn't look like he can handle the stress. He's got shellshock already. You can hear it in his voice."
"Shellshock?"
Mr. Samsa: "It's something a lot of commanders get. They're in the CC for too long. Too many people asking for things... Too much stuff to keep an eye on..."
He paused for a moment. His tone was steady, but in the undertone you could sense his disturbance. I am still not sure, but I thought I heard him say "too many people screaming" silently, under his voice. I felt a coldness tingle at my back, but it never made its way into a shiver. I wondered what it must be like to have survived as many missions as he had. It seemed he was thinking about the same thing.
Mr. Samsa: "It gets worse with time, Jack. You'll notice it too, if you survive long enough. I don't mean that to scare you. You're with the best of the best here, but that doesn't really mean anything."
I heard his feet slip off the keyboard and clang against the floor. His chair rotated in my direction. His weapon was on his lap.
Mr. Samsa: "Do you know what the life expectancy is for one of us out here? Any guess? Two minutes. Two minutes in the field. You know how many missions I've physically been on? Five. I got most of my experience watching hosts."
"What do you mean by host?"
Mr. Samsa: "It's the person you watch before you phase. He's like your predecessor. You have a group of people on the drop ship who just watch that person through his headset feed. When he dies, one of us replaces him. He's host, we're the ghosts."
"That's interesting."
Mr. Samsa: "It's horrible. You sit around, waiting for your chance to die. The worst part's just watching, waiting for them to call out your name. In my last group, we all had to use the same nickname: Dead Meat. It was kind of a sick joke. We'd go through our people so fast, there was no time to learn names. Each group had the same name so that the commander wouldn't get confused."
"That's horrible."
Mr. Samsa: "That's what I said. It's ok here, though. Our teams get their own names. We're supposed to live longer."
The task bar reached 100 percent. Lights faded on above and bellow me in the booth. An Interface button appeared on the screen.
"It’s ready. I'm going to need to be closed off to run it."
Mr. Samsa: "Have fun."
Yeah right, I thought to myself. I hoped the AI was functioning correctly. The technology is as frail as a human brain. Damaging parts would impair function completely, while damaging others would alter the performance. The Youkja appeared well-armored, but the room's condition harbored my doubt. Also, I wasn't sure how long it had been since the last reboot. If you kept a BrainTech running too long, it started acting funny. Company policy usually capped the function time around six years. A complete mental enema was required after that.
I tapped the interface button.
Black shields slid down over the windows and the entrance door snapped shut. The room was shortly filled with a green aura, reminiscent of the face of the Youkja, which began to fill my view screen.
For most people, BrainTech is a disappointment. There is no real shock to the fact that you are talking to an intelligent machine. Their speech is similar to that of a child's. However, after a few sessions of talking to the same BrainTech, you start to find it more and more acting like yourself. This has become a problem in the past. I knew better than to stay jacked in for too long.
Her face looked like a digital angel, meshed with tones of green and white, in mechanical patterns.
(|Y|) "Hello and welcome. I am Youkja."
The female voice was comforting, though it wasn't human. At least it wasn't alien.
"Hello. I need your diagnostics and a console, please."
(|Y|) "You will need to deactivate any recording equipment before your request is processed."
"Commander-"
C.C. - Ashura Demon: "-What, Civi?"
He snapped at me.
"She's asking me to deactivate my headset."
C.C. - Ashura Demon: "She who?"
"The Youkja?"
C.C. - Ashura Demon: "Whatever. Go ahead."
Darkens: "See about getting us some maps, Jacket."
Mr. Samsa: "Any intelligence is good. Tell us when you're finished."
"Ok. Ciao for now."
C.C. - Ashura Demon: "What?"
Darkens: "He said-"
I switched it off. I waited for the Youkja to respond. She didn't.
"Diagnostics and a console, please?"
Her anatomy and health spewed out across the screen. I looked it over, checking into the more sensitive areas. She looked fine.
"How are you feeling?"
(|Y|) "Decent. I am worried about the crew."
"How much control do you have over the ship?"
(|Y|) "Caron instigated a lockdown about four weeks ago. I can't do much."
Details displayed across the screen. Looking it over, it didn't seem she could perform much of anything useful. Her powers were restricted to simple ship data and her personal lodgings.
"Who is Caron?"
(|Y|) "The Head Science Officer."
A bio window popped up. He looked unpleasent.
"Thanks. I'd like a map of the ship, please."
Displayed. It seemed like the whole package.
(|Y|) "What is your name?"
"...Jack."
(|Y|) "Jack, what is going on?"
"You've got aliens on your ship, Youkja. Put this map on a disk for me."
(|Y|) "One moment."
I noticed that a small section of the new map was exceptionally vague. It was labeled "off limits." A disk ejected bellow the screen.
"Thank you, Youkja."
(|Y|) "Are you leaving?"
"Yes, I'll need to log out."
(|Y|) "Ok. Please come back."
"I'll try to."
The interface shut down. The windows and back door re-opened. I slid out of the compartment into the quiet room. Samsa was gone. The sentry heads rotated slowly around, making the only sounds. I hadn't noticed how dark it was. My eyes were having to adjust.
I switched on my head set. I was met with a blaring, blood-curdling scream.
[ Previous
Page ] [ Next
Page ]
|
Disclaimer
Monster is © Edan Koch. The Universe in which it takes place is based upon Natural-Selection. All characters and locations are fictional. Any association with actual persons or places is coincidental.
Natural-Selection and all artwork, screenshots, text and code associated with it are © Charles G. Cleveland, 2001.