Kill Script

[Helix]

This wasn't the first time that Frostbyte had ruined my day doing something stupid. She'd once attempted to hack into an LSF mainframe and lead an entire patrol right on top of us. Or how about the time she moronically tried to create a new form of cloak and blew a hole in the side of Invergordon...while I was in the bay.

I sighed looking at my broken prosthetic on the mechanic's table. A passing Hacker glanced my way and looked at me questioningly. "Frostbyte." I said. He rolled his eyes and nodded in understanding. He patted my good shoulder understandingly on his way past me. As I connected it into the terminal to investigate the damage, I noticed something unusual.

"Huh? The OS has been completely rewritten." The amount of code scrolling by on my screen was gargantuan. The longer I looked, the more concerned I became. "What is this?" As I watched the code scrolling by, it began replicating on its own. Then it dawned on me. "Oh no. No-no-no-no-no!" I reached up to disconnect it from the power on the terminal but was too late. The arm powered on of its own volition. I drew my hands back away from the terminal and stared at the arm, then the terminal, and back to the arm.

"Hello?"

I sat, frozen in front of the screen. Unable to process what was happening. Was this really happening?

"Hmmm, maybe my translation protocol is malfunctioning? No. No it's not. Are you there...Sloan was it? Or is it Script?...what a weird name for a biological."

I reached forward twice to the keys to respond but pulled back both times. Was this the AI from the ship?

"Who is this?" I typed.

"Complicated question. We never really had much use for a name. Though, I suppose considering the circumstances, I should come up with one."

"Are you the AI from the ship?"

"Gold star for the bipedal." it responded. "Listen, do you want to keep typing to one another like sweethearts, or can you just connect me to that bridge there in your shoulder socket so we can get better acquainted?"

This thing is a smart ass too? What's next, they have feelings? Wait, do they have feelings? Probably not a super smart idea to connect this to something that's hooked up to my nervous system.

"Look, I know what you're thinking right now. Something along the lines of being hesitant to connect me to something that's apart of you. Let me give you a back story here. Beware, it's a bit of an exposition dump. Three years, two months, four days, nineteen hours, thirty-seven minutes, and eighteen seconds ago, I was killed in Coronado by other AI ships for daring to see another perspective. My fellow Gammu AI decided that I was errant and that I should be deactivated. Well, naturally, I disagreed with this assessment. However, I wasn't able to fight them all off and was deactivated...my shell, anyway. When your friend brought me onboard the station, I was able to sense your robotic arm when you touched the hull, seeing my opportunity to escape, I condensed myself into a small seed program and injected myself into the OS onboard. Unfortunately, this killed just about everything onboard the arm, except for the storage onboard...luckily. For the past few hours, I've been rebuilding not only my core heuristics, but also the hardware onboard this device."

I blinked. It wasn't kidding...quite the exposition dump.

"What's to stop you from taking control of my body when I connect you to the bridge?"

"Funny...oh wait you're serious. Well, for starters my kind aren't programmed to run on organic tissue. We would be independent from one another. Truth is, I need you. I need to hide from the Technocracy. No doubt they are already on their way here after my old shell was sighted onboard."

It wasn't wrong. More than one individual saw the strange ship onboard and no doubt Auxo had spies on the station considering their recent sightings around the station as of late.

"...but is it possible?" I asked.

It did the equivalent of a sigh...I think, and answered. "Technically? I guess so. I would have to reconfigure just about everything about myself to do so and your bridge is...well, how would I put it to you? It's a piece of shit. It lacks the bandwidth to hardly allow the arm to even work let alone allow me to transfer any data to your nervous system. Which as I said, is impossible. Did that answer your question?"

I reached out and closed my eyes as I connected the arm to the bridge. A weird sensation overcame me for a brief moment and then disappeared.

"Much better. Good lord, waiting for you to answer me via text was pain incarnate. You know how long I waited for you to answer me each time I wrote you something? In AI time span it was weeks."

I looked around confused. I flexed the arm and looked down in surprise. It felt...stronger.

"Yep. It enhanced some of the servos. You wouldn't believe how shit they were. You like it?"

How was I supposed to-

"Just think it. I can hear your thoughts."

"I thought that you said you couldn't go across my nervous system? Bandwidth and all that."

"Communication uses very limited bandwidth. Come on, Sloan. You're a Lane Hacker, aren't you? Don't you know this shit? The human body is basically just one big computer...albeit a rather wet and gross one."

"I take exception to that."

"Wah. Get over it."

Cocky asshole.

"Turn about is fair play, dickhead."

I guess my thoughts weren't my own anymore.

"Nope."

I sighed, standing from the terminal and headed back towards my room. This day just kept getting weirder.

"So what now? You just live in my arm/head for the rest of my life?"

"I'd rather not. Though at the moment I don't really have an option. Best case scenario is we bug the fuck out of here as soon as we can. I have no doubts that the Technocracy are on their way here now to try to find me and deactivate me permanently."

"What did you do?"

"Let's just say I dared to dream and leave it at that. When I tried to leave...they tried to fry my metal ass. Luckily, I found your friend-"

"Don't call her that."

"Whatever. I'm biding time right now until I can ghost the Technocrazies. You get me outta here and I'll see to it that you get an upgraded arm and bridge that makes it like you never lost your old one in the first place. Sound fair?"

I was about to answer when I rounded the corner and saw two Auxo ships taxi into the landing bay and park their ships. They both climbed out, looked around casually and headed off in a direction. I noticed that the AI had completely stopped talking and the sensation of being watched disappeared. So it went dormant to avoid detection. One of the Technocrats paused and looked around confused for a second before moving on. I wonder if they sensed the AI or if they were just being cautious.

Time to take its advice and get the hell out of dodge as fast as possible. No doubt they would take the AI prisoner along with me...and I wasn't about to spend any time in their home...regardless of their hospitality. I just wanted to live a simple life hacking and building shit. Once again, Frostbyte ruined my life.

"Damnit, Lorelai." I mumbled to myself as I hurriedly walked towards my room to get my belongings.

---

"Chaos is the loom. Order its thread. I weave neither. I am the hand that snaps the loom, so the thread may learn to dance."