Valravn’s docks were grandiose, with immense beams of white metal and a spotless floor of white iridium stretching out for at least fifty meters in both height and width – enough to house some of the greatest saviors of Inverness, including the Predator and the Redeemer, neatly hanging from the ceiling with indestructible zero-g containment fields, ready for deployment at a moment’s notice. Multiple teams of armored guards were roaming around the perimeter of the upper level with precise and surgical marching patterns of six, almost comparable to those of machines. But what made them different from machines is that they were skin and blood and bone inside. The technocracy was a perfect symbiosis between steel and flesh, metal and gore, one helping the other in ways they could not help themselves. There was truth and wisdom in this holy union, a truth that was proved to be right multiple times, and a truth Sirius was, and never will, be ready to embrace. But there was a note of discomfort in the pilot of the approaching Jackdaw. Lazurith, as he made himself known to be, named after the eponymous mineral. He felt a leash around his naked neck, one that was never there. He approached the docking bay next to three perfectly aligned Hawfinch fighters, breaking the symmetry.
As he exited the yellow and scorched piece of scrap of a ship, he was immediately approached by a dozen soldiers in white, glistening heavy combat gear – the kind you see on space Marines who jump from a ship’s hull onto another with reckless abandon and splay the gore of everyone inside a ship with steel and overwhelming firepower. Only one of the soldiers, identical to the rest by the looks of the armor, stepped forward, with a Devastator MK733-4 rifle embraced in his hands, the shining visor of purple being the only recognizable thing for a face. It made its way past the mirrored rows of soldiers varying in height and size, approaching the jacketed contrarian who caused them nothing but trouble.
“Technocrat Lazurith.” “Yes? Is something amiss?” “Valentine's debriefing was ridiculous. You caused a major breach in a security protocol; our whole base went on Magenta alert because you can’t keep away from exclusion zones.”
The technocrat chose to promptly ignore the soldier’s complaints, despite the plethora of weapons that could have gone off at any second. He attempted to walk past the soldier, who promptly stood in his way again, preventing him an escape.
“We had to rush-start the Ixion. To exfiltrate you.” “Look, soldier. If boarding a ship at such a late time and three hots and a cot aren’t enough for you, you can always leave. If it’s such a bother for you to do your job, just find something else. It’s okay.”
Laz left a gentle pat with his left hand on a pauldron of the irritated squad leader, with every other marine glaring in silence as the contrarian walked his way past the flight of stairs, beyond the sub-level clearance guards and off to the elevators.
Valravn was much bigger from the inside past the entry drydocks. A huge elliptical dome of white opened past the elevator’s door, with a small garden in the middle, brightened up by an incandescent and warm light from above, while crowds of other technocrats like himself were making their rounds in the station, some were accompanied by delivery automations of steel and lights walking beside them and chattering with each other like good friends, some were other patrolling marines in squads of four moving with a more laxed pace than their hangar counterparts, and there were other scientists with goofy visor-like augmentations donning long lab coats, rushing over from a laboratory to the library back again to the same laboratory at impossible speeds. The world is a rich tapestry, and so was Valravn. Kristoff mostly ignored the orderly, tiny crowds, gestured silent salutations to the few he knew, and made his way past the central platform that opened up to different paths across the station, taking the lift that would take him to the living quarters sublevel – it was time to finish what he had started.
Back in the comfort of his room after nearly a year, everything was as untidy as the day he left it – only with more dust against the large wall-sized window that had a full view of Elgin. But what concerned him was a slowly glowing box of ethereal green lights with several wires attached to it lying on his work desk. The intricacies of the metal had an impossible, inhuman shape, like a wicker box made by all-knowing deities. “Time to get to work, Sam.” He murmured to himself, as he watched the small inert box do nothing but radiate light pointlessly.
Kristoff’s work ethic was bizarre. There were several large boxes of empty components scattered across the desk, coupled with wirings, high frequency optical chips, and a large holo-terminal illuminating his tired eyes from the other side of the desk. The box was still there on the middle of the bench, but attached to a plethora of wirings connected to an entry port to the wall terminal. The technocrat was typing on a holopad at light speeds thanks to his replaced augmentations, a price he had to pay for venturing in the world of the heartless Sentinels. After typing several lines of code on his plugged terminal, he returned his attention to the glowing box, glaring at it curiously. Perhaps by pulling up a common interface for Sam, as he would call it, and himself, he could try to restore its functions by dialoguing with it through the console.
<::cd:SAM.hsp logs::>
<::attempting to pair with 00009930030-UNDEFINED device…::>
<::FATAL ERROR at quadrant 0x00000003c: unknown port::>
<::FATAL ERROR at quadrant 0x00000032a: unknown port::>
<:: FATAL ERROR at quadrant 0x00000111e: unknown port::>
<::FATAL ERROR at quadrant 0x00100033c: unknown port::>
<::FATAL ERROR at quadrant 0x00000003z: unknown port::>
<::FATAL ERROR at quadrant 0x00000111p: unknown port::>
<::FATAL ERROR at quadrant 0x00000003c: unknown port::>
The blue terminal was shining with glaring green alerts, one replacing the other, cascading in a fall of failures and useless code. Every string turned out to be incompatible with his devices. For an ancient AI possibly exiled from Gammu, Sam was a tough nut to crack. There was a maelstrom of errors, one after the other.
But he would not give up. Sam was there, a contrarian just like him. In the palm of his hand, amidst the wires.
<dbcd:"SAM".hsp output is invalid and/or corrupt. Please replace your data bank.>
His attempts proved to be in vain, after an entire night of ceaseless labor, his quick fingers dashing across the two holo-terminals in his workshop bedroom. None of the ports he would try to jam in the bizarre improvised ports connected to Sam's power output seemed to be barely even compatible with his indescribable cubicle of information, sometimes going as far as recognizing him as an remote control trash bin. The space dust had been removed from the insides of the millenary machine, cleansed through the disinfection grid, he checked for faults in his transistors, and ascertained the functionality of his myriad cables plugged into every nook and cranny of the green thing. But no clear output response was given. It was as though the little verdant gaol refused to budge, his prisoner trapped deep behind a cascade of compatibility errors.
He felt exhausted and depressed, tossing away his beloved wrist pad into the wall. The morning simulated lights were coming back online to slowly wake up the more disciplined Technocrats into another daylight cycle to have them work in unison and perfect cohesion, like the obedient little tin soldiers they were. Like the tin soldier he was supposed to be. The one he couldn't be, because he had feeble things such as "feelings" or a "personality".
After tapping the shutdown procedure for the simulated lights, he slumped on his bed, making the few dozen screws and abandoned wire bundles jump off the mattress, falling into a deep slumber.
There was nothing he could do, but begrudgingly accept there was ultimately no easy way out of his predicament. No easing his burden through the technological wizardry he would often use to cheat his way out of every inconvenient situation. No more room left in dialogues with the other Technocrats to regain a shred of his credibility. He became nothing more than a deranged, self destructive lunatic who tossed relationships and diplomacy away like coal into a furnace. Kind of like Caliban, but with petty and childish reasons.
The worst part of it was his fame known to most technocrats onboard. Synths could easily access information through the uplink node, but the more aged vets or the encased troopers would turn their heads as he would pass by them down the corridors. Mostly on the account that he was the one who heralded the captivity of their former Keeper, raising eyebrows and concern left and right by his brothers and sisters.
Grumbling with clenched fists tucked inside his cargo slacks, he would walk past multiple corridors and elevator rides every day to have new transistors and actuator parts requisitioned at the local tech supply cargo bay. The man who would shower him with nifty odds and ends produced on Elgin and from all over Sirius was a particularly affable, level-headed and disciplined individual of distinct Kusarian descent going by the moniker of Zurui, whose notable traits made him out to be the complete and polar opposite of Kristoff. There were glances of awkward wonder and narrow eyes between the two, as they were both assigned to a particularly complicated project that would foresee the complete revision and conversion of two Liberty Assault Cruisers.
Lazurith promised high and never delivered. Zurui never promised anything and showed more interest in finally asserting domination over their competition far more than his harebrained lead project ever did. Things that were better left unsaid during their umpteenth conversation at the supply post.
“Good day.”
“Zurui.”
“I take it you are here for more Kishiro BKS-37 automatic transistors.”
“Yeah.”
The sharply dressed technocrat turned around the desk he was in, methodically reaching for a small handful of tiny devices with miniscule buttons on them, all equipped with a series of dangling black wired extensions hanging from them. He would neatly arrange them in front of the taller Libertonian, displaying them with great savoir-fair. He would glare at the Templar boy from behind his desk with his fancy pair of synthetic eyeballs, resembling a pair of oddly captivating black spheres with a faintly glowing circle for each eye, representing a normal human's iris with a lot of charm behind every blink. Though, they seemed to serve more the purpose of fully replacing one's vision rather than a synth fanatic fashion statement.
“You know, you really don't have to sort them so neatly every time. I'm burning through 'em like paper.”
“Dear Lazurith, need I remind you this equipment it not only rather pricey, but out of production and quite rare as of these times, not to mention our recent upheaval with Kusari. Our friends have gone through great lengths to get them while undercover. It would be quite the disaster if we were to squander them for personal pet projects.”
“I really don't care, they did their part. Just give me the requisition form and I'll be out of your hair.”
The Kusarian seemed to flinch idly for a moment, processing his acquired brother and former project leader's rudeness, only to handle him a light holo-pad onto his hands, containing several information deets about the requisition's order, the process and means of acquisition, the route taken and the date of delivery. Information he summarily did not even gloss over, and left his right thumb on the part that required his biometric signature. Without spending another minute in the vast storage room full of gear and goodies for everyone to share, he began packing up the row of five devices into his bag, ready to use them at his earliest convenience.
"Excuse me."
“...What.”
The scruffy and unkempt excuse for a Technocrat stopped himself on the way out of the room devoid of other people but them, turning around at the charming trader, to find the classy businesslike man briefly bowing in classic Kusarian custom.
"I have been thinking about you for a while, project leader. I have been glaring at the two twins from my daily commutes every day, and it truly wounds my heart to think--"
“Shush. Don't call me that. Just get to the point.”
The glazed eyed Kusarian briefly sighed in disappointment, before continuing.
"I believe that perhaps requesting permission to return to our former duties is in order. We have the technology to operate machinery that can perhaps gently pick apart the thinner parts of an Ageira reactor. Replacing it with our own shall not be an easy feat, but it will be possible nonetheless."
"No. Forget it, Zurui. I can't infuse our tech into something so finicky and stupidly complicated. Besides, how can you even run basic revisions on something that big? You'd need a full team."
"Incorrect. Our synth brothers are more than willing to cooperate. And besides--"
“And what about the engine reactor room. You know our Ionstream requirements are insanely precise, one wrong move and we'll waste millions of credits on one measly little sneeze of an accident. And think about the energy output ports, too. Thrusting coolers. It's not something you can stuff inside an Archer. Unless you... sacrifice cargo space for...”
The sly Kusarian smiled in evil glee. He got him to think about it.
“...I have to go. Goodbye, Zurui.”
Lazurith left the room in a rush, his head bristling with brain blasting realizations.
