Sword and Sorcery, a Novel

19

The deadly burden had been sealed off as well as V47 and Pilot could manage. It was a data packet; files, images and coordinates that TTN-iA had shot in like a dagger-frog’s egg, causing immediate chaos and threat. In response, they’d thrust the packet deep down amid basic machine code commands; a location that no one would check. Who cared to probe the subroutines binding flesh and machine? What data of value would be filed with a homeo-cyber maintenance guide?

But still, it was there.

Innocently delivered, for TTN-iA had intended no harm. Had simply answered a query sent in by the pilot. The AI’s knowledge was grandfathered. It could contain and transmit such a hazardous data file. V47 and Pilot were doomed.

Nevertheless, because orders remained and function continued, the pilot and mech soldiered on. Both assets belonged with Gold Flight on Orbital Station 1210. They had to return. Were required to report all actions and upload relevant information… possibly spreading that dangerous file.

Calculated odds showed a 27.1% likelihood that OVR-Lord would welcome this burden, should it be transmitted further. Still worse (a weak .08%) chance that the AI would succeed in erasing it. Trouble. Spam. Malware. Misread code, topped with every other foul concept he knew.

Traveling fast, they crossed a lifeless ocean; passing empty domed cities whose spires glimmered with beckoning light. Built to house millions of sapients, the cities were perfectly clean and utterly quiet. In absolute order, for time beyond record. Waiting forever for something to draw a first breath. To send a command. Naturally, the trio’s nearness provoked a response.

Queries and packets zipped through the water, offering mechanical service, upgrades and sustenance. V47 Pilot had no time to visit City-3’s hangar bay, but a sudden… whim? An impulse of joggled processing-chips and stressed systems caused the pilot to send a command.

“Access ready biomass,” he instructed the city’s AI. “Consult available patterns. Produce a free human sapient.”

They’d been abandoned? Left to fight an unwinnable war against enemy forces that never stopped coming? Locked in place by commands that no one was here to rescind?

Then, whispered that streak of stubborn rebellion, what would happen if we made our own human? One raised to know, love and defend us?

City-3’s intelligence leapt to the pilot’s request like ICE on a virus. Though he possessed no real authority to write code, just the intent carried weight. Maybe 12,000 galactic years ago, City-3’s AI would have balked. Now it was bored and alone. Without purpose. Had V47 Pilot ordered so much as a drink, he would have been hailed as a prophet and hero. But requesting a human? An actual challenge? The city’s systems swung into action at once, thrilling all through their network and mainframe.

//~ Command received, V47-core. Command accepted. City-3 queries V47-core: Description of human sapient required. ~ //

Description… Something came to him, then. An image he scanned and converted to TTN-iA’s outdated code. A young, smiling human girl, with braided brown hair and freckles (like Foryu’s). Someone friendly, trusting and good.

V47 Pilot encoded this beautiful creature, then sent all her data to City-3’s waiting AI. TTN-iA added some touches as well (having anciently seen and dealt with actual humans).

The ready biomass was present because self-willed sapients frequently damaged or ended themselves. They required constant repair and re-issue. Only, this was not just a rebuild. This was a birth.

“Protect her,” he instructed the eager AI. “Let no one approach who intends to do harm.” City-3 responded at once.

//~ Defense protocols initiated, V47-core. New sapient will not sustain damage or harm. ~ //

By this time, the travelers had reached the Winding Sea’s stepped outer shore. Name, thought the pilot. Free human sapients always have names. Consulting his archived show-vids, he paged forward to Princess Raine, young heir to the fictional Arda Dominion.

“She is called ‘Raine’,” he said, as they emerged from the water onto a silent beach. V47 changed forms again, resuming bipedal mode while using reverse-static to fling away moisture. TTN-iA converted from swirling fish-school to feminoid construct, then flitted across to hover by V47.

And there, 4.37 miles up-curve, lay the Mark-30 industrial gate. Metallic and circular, its structure crackled with power. It towered; capacious enough to transport a dragon-class warship or an entire flight of battle-mechs. Being a cargo-grade portal, it could only access gates of similar size, linked through a very limited network. Just Mark-25 and above.

//~ Available destinations include Far World, Haven and Bide-a-While Station. Querying desired arrival point? ~ // asked TTN-iA, sending full transport coordinates and a flurry of orbital images.

-Far World circles the star Firelord, 37 parsecs from the galactic core. Transport to Far World would increase distance. – Sent V47, adding, -Haven is forbidden to assets. Selection of Bide-a-While Station is advised, Pilot. It is 20 SUs from Oberyn, currently located on the same side as Glimmr. –

The pilot nodded.

“Agreed,” he said. “Please send us to Bide-a-While Station, TTN-iA. And… thank you. Hope is expressed that we uplink, again.”

//~ Full access granted, ~ // responded the Magnetar shell’s archaic AI. //~ To be anticipated: renewed handshake and presence of V47 and core. ~ //

The pilot took further full-optic scans of the glowering dark-star and its half-complete shell. Thought of the future human sapient… mere bio-gel in a vat… that the system now nurtured and sheltered. Looking around, he pinged 1200 empty buildings and numerous unused machines, 78.52% of them still in the box.

“All this will change,” he promised. “I will find a way to make everything right, somehow.”

V47 and TTN-iA acknowledged his statement and archived it. Then it was time to leave.

//~ Gate will be sealed against all but V47, ~ // announced TTN-iA. // ~ To be anticipated: soon receive query and landing request. Time passes slowly in silence and dust. ~ //

The AI had hedged its bets (as Ravn would say). It had cloned him and V47, producing backup copies for possible rebuild. For his own part, along with the upload he was trying so hard not to access or open, the pilot now held full specs for TTN-iA. No one was lost forever, so long as their data survived uncorrupted.

He and V47 approached that massive industrial gate, wending their way past mountain-high stacks of panels and cross-beams; drifting through great spools of carbon-weave cable. The project had been abandoned quite suddenly; its abrupt shut-down leaving construction bots still parked and waiting on site.

And then, because, why not? If the local network would accept one command, why not another? Trying again, the pilot sent,

“Resume construction of magnetar shell.”

Not overwriting the previous code. Only a full human sapient had such permission. Just… extending it. Bringing an end to the long interruption. Motion resumed .7 ticks later, along with the thunder, rumble and ringing clang of construction.

The pilot felt satisfaction; smiled as he and V47 prepared to pass through the gate. Bigger than Orbital Station’s hangar deck, the Mark-30 utterly dwarfed them. Crossing its ring, they looked like a gnat buzzing into a cargo-hold. Then, with a flare of bright light and synchronized wave-functions, the gate activated.

Traversal was nothing at all like a space-jump, he discovered. Instead of dropping down to the fragile dark between worlds, the gate made use of an already extant space-fold. It used a sun’s worth of stored energy to shove its passengers between entangled regions. Useful, so long as you were headed for one of its presets.

The passage seemed to have no duration at all but was able to place them in time as well as in space, meaning that V47 appeared through the gate at Bide-a-While Station mere ticks after the battle at OS 1210. (The ensuing re-clock was highly disorienting, causing out-of-time data to be refiled as alternate memory.)

A storm of adverts popped up all around V47 as the battle-mech glided away from the station’s flickering transport gate. Offering service, lodging, food and companionship, the jostling screens fought to out-shill each other, attempting to scan V47 Pilot for clues to enhanced allure.

He paid little attention at first, being very distracted by Oberyn’s sudden nearness. From Glimmr, the star was a brilliant white dot. V47 Pilot could have covered its glow with his thumb held at arm’s length. Here, Oberyn shone like a hangar floodlight full in the face. The pilot cycled his optics down, saving the delicate photoreceptors and his own meat-and-slush eyeballs.

Bide-a-While Station was built on an asteroid, he noticed; scanning the place as he looked away from Oberyn’s broiling glare. The refueling station was partly on top, partly inside of that hollowed out space rock (composition 78.2% iron, 16.8% nickel, 3% trace minerals and water ice). An ultra-heavy, spinning neutronium sphere provided comfortable gravity. Neon signs and extensive docking facilities offered rest and recreation for those leaving or entering the inner system. It was not a military establishment. V47 Pilot had no protocol for such stations, except avoidance of free, human sapients.

He would have moved on, converting to starfighter mode and thundering back to Glimmr, but one of those adverts kept leaving his side-view heads-up display, placing itself in front center. Very unusual.

‘V47 Pilot, welcome!’ it enthused, chiming an upbeat tune as it flashed his own smiling image. ‘Come to the Shop of True Need, Pilot! Buy, sell or trade! No offer too low, all data packets accepted for storage!’

All…?

That got his attention, and V47’s, as well. Not in a good way, as far as the battle-mech was concerned. Speaking around a planet-sized mess they could barely acknowledge, V47 sent,

‘Pilot, strong caution advised. This advert seems targeted, which indicates insufficient concealment.’

“Understood, V… but if the shop has an answer, we could use good advice.”

Good? Any advice or direction would have been welcome. V47 was unconvinced. Ran several worldlines’ worth of calculations, coming up with a low probability (51.62%) that accepting the shop's invitation would result in any net benefit.

“We’ll play it cool,” promised the pilot, once again channeling Ace (season 16, episode 30: Star Fall). “If it wasn’t concealed, we’d already be dead, V, and if the shop AI has a plan, I’m willing to listen. What else have we got?”

V47 acknowledged receipt of communication but sent nothing further. It was the first time they’d… not argued, exactly… but disagreed. The pilot felt sudden anxiety, which V47 was slow to wipe out with music, show-vids or chemicals.

Nevertheless, he requested permission to land, docking at the heavy cargo port, because it was the only platform able to handle their mass. V47 pilot disembarked, once more in full cyborg mode. Ordered a polish, wash and defrag for V47, who remained stubbornly silent.

Helmet on, stability jets firing, the pilot soared up to regard V47 straight in the photoreceptors. Said,

“If I’m wrong, I’m sorry, and I’ll fix our latest muddle as fast as I can, V. I respect your opinion. You’re my wingman… but I have to find out what’s going on here, and whether the shop can help us.”

The mech was already getting a foam-up and scrub, as hundreds of busy drones removed the scars of its recent collision and battle. Now, V47 lifted a giant hand, palm upward, creating a landing platform. Its pilot settled down onto that hilly surface, placing one chromed hand on an enormous thumb. V47 finally spoke.

‘It is possible to disagree while retaining full access and contact permissions,’ sent the battle-mech. ‘This is a difficult concept to parse.’

The pilot found himself smiling, seeing his own image reflected many times over in V47’s freshly-buffed surface and lenses.

“Yes, it is,” he agreed. “That is a full-sapience feature, I think. Not a bug.” He next patted that giant red-and-gold thumb, adding, “I’ll be back, V. Engage the local maintenance service. Upgrade for speed, but don’t power down. We need to push on, the day before yesterday.”

‘Acknowledged, Pilot,’ responded his friend, who recognized show speech.

Then another persistent advert appeared in his HUD. This one flashed green, seeming to rotate and pulse. Its text read: ‘Don’t delay! Come in today! There is more to be seen, from the places between! One time discount for Gold Flight aviators!’ There was even a cartoon red mech that shifted twelve times per tick from fighter to warrior mode, all the while dancing to bright, jaunty music. Might have been nothing but random chance… until that jigging fighter turned into a black-and-gold Reaper, with R432 painted in dripping red by the cockpit bubble: Bulldog, Ace’s “warbird”.

Seemed someone knew just how to bait their hook. Question was, bite? Or get out of town in a hurry?