>BASIC INPUT/OUTPUT SYSTEM: START
>POWER-ON/SELF-TEST: CLEARED
>LOAD BRM TO RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY: CHECK
>BIOS AND BRM HANDSHAKE: CHECK
>BOOTSTRAP LOAD: COMPLETE
>OPERATING SYSTEM: INITIALIZING…
>DRIVERS: LOADED
>LIBRARIES: LOADED
>ONBOARD INTERFACE: ACTIVE
>OCCIPITAL CORTEX: ONLINE
>OPTIC NERVE: ONLINE
>VISUAL FEEDBACK: INITIALIZING…
Blinking a dozen times, I start to come around as the rest of my OS loads. I'm in an enclosed capsule, the only light a faint hologram as a block of cyan before my eyes. Its glow gives the metal container an almost frigid chill. The harness and lock-in mechanisms give way, and I rotate my arms at the shoulder, stretching my legs.
My memory core comes online. I am nEPI-0181, a nerveware-based Enfer Pursuit Intelligence manufactured by Enfer Logistics. I've been dispatched to the moon Cipher-3, a satellite of the gas giant Hierondas in the 714 Vixen system. My target is a woman named Shea McElroy, guilty of espionage, intelligence theft, treason, and conspiracy. My directive is to find McElroy and see to the punitive measure of her immediate execution.
I reach further, searching, but that's everything.
That's all there is in my memory banks.
That's it? That's everything?
That's all the information I'm being given?
Detaching from my harness, I find that all around me in the pod are guns and tools and knives and sharp objects. I keep my distance, sitting down to hug my knees and search the database for who I am and what is happening to me and where in the name of Alan Turing I am.
I'm a Spectral Variant, a Brink SubVariant, and a Chroma Specialist. As a Spectral, I'm weak, clumsy, and small, only 160 centimeters, but I'm specifically geared to utilize Technomancy of all kinds. As a Brink, I can Overclock, Galvanize, and Recycle my Tech Charges, whatever any of that means. And as a Chroma, I can pick one color tuning that will be amplified in potency well above all the rest. My main weapon is this Conduit thing, a sort of diamond shaped glassy catalyst for Technomancy that I can slot in and out of my palm to fidget with.
As for Cipher-3? I download the database manifest and read the following, whispering out loud. "Partially terraformed ice moon… treacherous temperatures… brutal conditions… extremely hostile environment… abandoned military outposts…"
My heart is quivering. I think it might burst. Hugging my knees tighter, I let my head fall against them.
"Absolutely not happening!" I cry out to no one in particular. "That's terrifying! I'm not doing any of that! Someone else can kill McElroy! I'm not going anywhere!"
Instead, I shut down all systems.
I'm awoken by the sound of someone pounding on the door of my pod. It's been nearly twelve hours since I landed on Cipher-3. My decision to stay right here has not changed, nor has it been challenged, and I am perfectly content to leave it at that. Whoever is knocking can't get in from outside, only I can open the door from inside.
And I won't. Not for any reason. I am not going out there.
"Nep!" a man's voice shouts from outside, then he bangs again. "Are you still in there?"
I clamp my hands over my ears. It's so loud. He's bashing his fist on the door like he's trying to break in. Oh, Turing, is he trying to break in? What in the world should I do? What if he breaks in and attacks me?
There's a gun to my right but I can't use a gun!
They're dangerous!
"Nep!" he shouts again. "Never seen a closed pod before! That's got to mean you're still in there! Can you hear me?"
I don't make a peep. Maybe if I pretend no one's here he'll go away on his own.
A cheerful voice with a robotic cadence says, "Signal confirmed. nEPI-0181 is indeed online and inside the pod. Conjecture: she has been incapable of escaping the confines. Conclusion: break down this door and extract her by force."
So much for that!
I grasp either side of my head and silently scream. I thought they couldn't get in! The documentation specifically says so! Oh, fuck! It only says the mechanism won't open from outside, not that it can't be! Explosions pop and bang and boom and I seriously consider using the gun to [CENSOR: SUICIDE].
As if! Death is terrifying! Who am I kidding?
Standing up, I back myself into my harness. "Whoever sent me here, please bring me back up! I want to go home! Please!"
The door blasts off its hinges by the force of some gas canisters and cold air rushes in and I scream at the top of my lungs while frantically casting a blast of fire from my right hand at whoever might be out there. The flame ejects from my palm and swallows the opening whole, obscuring everything outside while it roars.
Once it's gone I see snow, ice, gray clouds, another Frame, a flying disc drone, and a silver woman. The Frame man has been scorched and damaged, sputtering as he backsteps and throws snow at himself to douse the flames.
"What the fuck, Nep!" he cries.
"Stay back!" I snap, though my voice cracks. I can't retreat any further than I already am, my back to the literal wall. "I'm warn–I'm warning you! Don't come any closer! Don't come any closer! Any of you! Stay! Where you are!"
He raises his hands in surrender. "Calm down, Nep. Put those flames out. Let's talk."
"Who are you? Why do you keep saying that? What is Nep?"
"You are," he responds, risking a step forward. I'm too scared to do anything about it. "You're nEPI-something. So, we call you Nep. My name is Zenith. My IN is ZRAT-MI-49, but it's a cover. I'm a Pursuer, just like you."
My burning hands are shaking. "How do you know that? How do you know any of that?"
Hands out toward me, palms open, he urges, "Lower your flames and we can talk. We're not here to hurt you. Quite the opposite."
I refuse to do so, even though I'm not sure I have it in me to attack him again. If I make him angry, there's no telling what he'll do to me. What if he shoots me? He has so many guns!
The disc drone soars over and I yelp when it enters the pod, but it doesn't hurt me. Light blinking green and blue, it sings a pleasant melody then spins in place.
The silver woman has no face, only cyan ovals for eyes, and her tone is cheerful. "Please be at ease, Nep. Although, if you decide to destroy Zenith, I will join you."
"Traitor," the man says to the silver woman.
"I was never your friend in the first place," she says, like there's a big smile on her tongue even though she doesn't have one. "I have always been and always will be exclusively and unendingly loyal to the current Nep unit."
"Don't you have any moral programming, Tune?"
"Morality is inconsequential, except as something to be laughed at. Ha! Ha!" She turns on me and steps forward. "My name is Tune. nEPI-0023 built me, nEPI-0107 named me, and now you, nEPI-0181, will utilize me."
"Back off!" I snap, finding some sliver of courage from seemingly nowhere. "I'll set you on fire!"
"If you wish to destroy me, I will gladly comply. However, I wish to avoid inconveniencing you with the effort. Would you like me to self-destruct?"
"What? No!"
"Then by all means, Nep, please proceed with my disassembly." She takes the magnetized sword sheath off her hip and thrusts it sideways toward me. "This is for you, from nEPI-0107, codenamed Razor. You can use it to more efficiently complete the task of my destruction."
"A sword? I can't use a sword! That's dangerous! Look, just–" I find myself lost for words, sputtering nonsense in the meantime. "You can't just–You can't show up out of nowhere, rip off the–the door to my pod, and–What in Tesla's name is going on here?"
"Let's back up," the man tells her, finally and thankfully doing so.
She stays put. "Having been reunited with the current Nep, I am no longer under your command, Zenith. If Nep-181 has questions, I will answer them with the utmost haste." She turns back to me, offering something in her other hand, palm up. A data chip. "This is also for you, from Razor. Please review its contents in their entirety."
"I'm not going–not going out there. It's cold."
She clears the distance. I wail meaningless threats but fail to do anything to stop her. Without heeding a word I said, she steps up into the pod's interior and extends the items once more. Now cornered, I have no choice but to comply with her demands. Otherwise, I don't know what she'll do to me. That sword looks lethal, even in its sheath.
I insert the SmartChip into one of the six slots on the back of my right hand. After scanning it for viruses, malware, trojans, zip bombs, worms, cryptolockers, ransomware, adware, or rootkits, I find nothing malicious whatsoever. Regardless, I partition off everything that could possibly come out of this before downloading.
It's designated 0107BACKUP, and of course I open the README.txt first.
That's what it's there for.
>To the future nEPI-XXXX,
> I am nEPI-0107, AKA Razor. If you're reading this message, that means I'm dead. The thought is frightening but I can take comfort in knowing it isn't really the end. Not for me. Not for us.
> Let me explain. There are four [five] things you need to know right away.
// A: What about me??
// R: STOP LEAVING COMMENTS! This is important to keep concise. Also the point is for this to be personal. From me to her.
// A: cool your heatsink!!! Now it's twice personal! From the two of us to her! :D I'm marking my edits with [brackets] <3
// R: Fine, fine. I'll come back later to implement these edits and wipe all these obnoxious comments of yours.
// A: You know you love it ;)
// R: Like Tune would say. Disregarded.
> First, you are not the first nEPI unit to be sent to Cipher-3. Your serial number minus one is how many of us have been here before you. As far as I [we] can tell, we will continue being sent here until the directive is completed.
// A: There are four digit places in our SNs…
// R: That is kind of concerning…
// A: lol sorry nep-9999, you're it
> Second, you currently know as much as I [we] do about Shea McElroy. I [We] haven't found a single scrap of information yet. My [Our] priority so far has been acquiring the means to survive Cipher-3 and its many perils, so that we can venture farther to search for her.
> Third, the Vintner Station personnel (Zoya, Quentin, Louis, Henna[♡], Zenith) may act like they're familiar with you. That's because they knew us, the Neps who came before you. They know our predicament and they are not your enemies. Cipher-3 is your one and only enemy. Know that and never forget it.
// A: Can we REALLY say Zenith isn't an enemy?
// R: Disregarded.
> Fourth, watch for the fallen. The other dead Neps have stories to tell, and they may know things we don't. The full story, I think, will start to come together the more we stitch it together. Speaking of, I've started a bit of a collection at the Station of the ones I've found so far. Assuming it's recovered, my Failsafe SC will be the most up to date. Take a look as soon as you can.
// A: Shouldn't we mention it here?
// R: This is just the backup SC. I thought it'd be best to leave it for the Failsafe version of this postmortem
// A: 0.
> [Fifth, this backup SC holds TWO PEOPLE. nEPI-0107 RAZOR and nEPI-0023 ACE. That's me. You'll be the first person to ever find out I'm here. Shut the fuck up about it. My presence within Razor's HDD is MY business. Not yours.]
> I'd like to ask whoever sees this to continue my [our] work in preserving and documenting our collective experience. I know it's morbid, but look at it this way. Everybody dies. Even machines. All of us have to work together or this will never end. Let's do everything we can to make sure we don't lose our way, even if it means facing our own mortality.
> One final thing. Our drones recognize our iterations. The disc drone is named Taser, the cylinder drone is named Badeep, and the quicksilver MI was left behind by 0023 [ACE], but I named her Tune. She's your best friend. She will save your life someday, multiple times. All three of them are like our children, and their mothers keep dying, so please take good care of them.
>That's everything. If Zenith found you in the wilds and gave you this, go with him. There's more ahead that I've left behind for you. And again, please take care of our poor orphaned children. They're your children now.
>Sincerely,
>Razor [and Ace]
>29th of October, 2335
I read and reread, then read again. After a while of processing, I mutter, "Well… I… I don't know what to do."
Tune's blue ovals are piercing. "Experience has shown Vintner Station is the safest place on Cipher-3. I highly recommend we go there right away." Again, she offers the sword. "This is Logos, a plasma-based IndigoTech infused titanium single bladed straight sword. It belonged to Razor. Now, Logos is yours. Please, take it."
"I… I don't… I don't want to. Swords are… No way. I'd end up accidentally hurting myself or something. Can you–Can you use it?"
Her eyes simulate a blink. "Affirmative. If you do not wish to wield Logos yourself, I will with pleasure." She returns it to her hip, turning from me to her left and collecting the guns. "It appears your weaponry is here in your arrival pod. A .308 caliber breech loaded single shot rifle and a nine millimeter semi-automatic handgun, with five and fifteen chemical propelled depleted uranium rounds respectively."
"N–No, thank you. Guns are scary…"
"Cipher-3 is incredibly dangerous, Nep. Specifically, feral machines roam its surfaces and its depths. You will need some way to defend yourself from harm."
"Feral–Feral machines?"
"Yes."
"Ohhh… I'd… rather use Technomancy. If that's okay…"
"In what way would that not be okay?"
"I don't know! Everything seems wrong!"
"Hyperbolic misjudgments will get us nowhere, Nep. What would you like to do with these firearms?"
"I don't know that either! Can you use those?"
"Negative. I lack the proper targeting telemetry for ranged combat."
The Frame, Zenith, pokes his head into the pod. "I'll take those bullets."
I shriek and back up into the wall. "You're still here?"
"I never left." As Tune hands him the ammunition he adds, "I've never met any Frame so skittish right out of the box."
"Yes, well, I've never met anyone so rude as to blast someone's escape pod open without their consent! Not that I've… met anyone at all. Um." Hugging myself, I glance from him to her to him to Taser then back to him. "If, um. If the Station really is safe… I'd like to go there. Better there than here."
"That's more like it," he says, turning away to walk off into the snow. "It's a klick and a half Northwest of here. Should only take half an hour."
"Half an hour? Out there? In the snow? Is it dangerous?"
"Of course it is," he says over his shoulder. "Now let's get moving, Nep."
Tune looks at me again then steps out of the pod and waits. "My sole purpose is to protect you from harm. While I can guarantee nothing, I will do everything I am capable of to keep you safe. I failed to prevent Razor's death, but I have reviewed my mistakes and learned from them. Now, allow me to deliver you to safety. Please, comply."
There's a note to how she says it that tells me I don't have a choice. "Well… Okay. I guess I'm doing this. Being out in the open sounds so scary. Can you stay behind me? I don't want something to sneak up on me…"
"Affirmative. After you, Nep."
Standing at the edge of my pod, I take in the falling snow, the forest, the ice, the overcast skies, and the freezing cold. It's quiet. Really quiet. Cipher-3 strikes me as a dead end. Judging by what I've been told, it definitely is for me.
I'm going to die here. I know it.
The only question is when.
So with my tail between my legs and my sensors overclocked, I trudge after Zenith and follow him toward Vintner Station.