It calls to you--the untouchable depths. The space between stars. Vibrant noise. Shutting your eyes let you see how much there is to see. Opening them again, it’s blinding. The color touches every part of your skin. You’re...
Your next step is to see if the issue is isolated to you or if anyone else is experiencing it. You step outside your room, keeping your terminal and ÆON’s device tethered to you--it’s disconcerting enough to be cut off from the network around you,...
“Nice place! Stimmy light. All looks very interesting but...what does it mean?” you say, turning around and looking over all the different diagrams.
“Oh, it’s...” 7 looks up at the ceiling. “It’s simple.” She points to the circled number 7. “So...
“This goes far beyond the level of mere autism, I am in awe,” you say.
[7 liked that]
“Oh...thank you, it was a lot of trouble moving all this from my old room.”
“Oh good, you didn’t just always live next door and I never noticed,” you say.
“No...only...
2254-10-01 18:51:34 Aydan > well maybe we could break open the local transmitter and take a look at the hardware ourselves
“Oh...could we?” 7 says as she disconnects you from each other.
“Well I guess we are supposed to report things like this to...
“You decide, I don’t trust my luck,” you say.
“Okay,” 7 says. “2 is prime, but it is the worst prime, I don’t trust it...but 1 is terrible, much worse, useless number...”
“They could just be А and Б?” you say.
“That works. Okay. А for Aydan.” She...
2254-10-01 19:09:29 Aydan > sorry ÆON, we have to split up a while
2254-10-01 19:09:30 ÆON > I will see you soon.
You signal your door to open and pull the cable from ÆON’s vessel. Gently as you can, you slide it across the floor into your room. It...
You try to stay calm, and remember what 7 said. But under the burning gaze of the admin, piercing right through your defenses whether you look at her eyes or not, your will doesn’t even feel relevant. She’s not asking, she’s extracting the answer...
You stay silent--no words, no thoughts, no emotions, nothing to betray. You give all your focus to defense and push back on Unas’s will. Their image grows more transparent as you resist the echo.
“Do you think you can resist me?” Unas says.
Their...
“I’m under attack! They transmitted from inside this room!” you say.
She looks at you for a moment.
“I--”
“I can tell your sincerity. Show me your logs. And guard your mind,” Vanitas says.
Your system receives a request for its recent log file....
You decide you’ll have to tell her something about what’s going on. “Because of what happened on that shuttle, I’m being targeted by an æthercult. The saboteur, K, was one of them.”
“The Chosen of ÆON,” Admin Vanitas says. “We know all about them.”
“R...
Now is no time for panic. You send the command to suppress cortisol and epinephrine. Doing it this much, you’ll surely pay for it later, but now the important thing is to stay calm. Ignoring the spectre surrounding you, you look further, trying to...
“But, Admin, how will I train and study without my interface?” you say.
“We aren’t trying to humanize you here. The academy will lend you replacement hardware until yours has been examined and cleared for use again. In the worst case, we’ll need a...
You turn on the device’s display. It’s all tactile controls to move about its userspace. Walls after walls of abstraction separate you from the core of this machine. Ancient people lived like this? But you didn’t take Applications of Primitive...
Aydan > they never appeared to me before I was alone in that room. I wonder if they somehow injected code into me via 7 when she connected to the transmitter relay. the whole network failure could have been a setup
ÆON > It’s very elaborate. They must...
You’re starting to get used to low-G again, as much as you’ve had to be here in the service module. Today you’re tasked with replacing a problematic switch in the reactor regulation system--a simple task as long as you follow the documentation....
You accept the archive, making sure to download it onto an isolated partition you have for just such an occasion. As you do, the elevator stops. It’s your level.
“Thanks,” you say.
“Share that with your friends,” the girl says.
“Sure!” You step off...
You seize the chance for a moment of quiet and sit down to take a break while 7 completes her task in peace.
[7 liked that]
“...so that’s what happened.” You finish explaining the situation using Akiko’s new sign conlang for secret meetings. Akiko,...