The Station crew tells me everything.
Ace's and Razor's Failsafe SmartChips confirm it all.
It's true. It's all true. We're sent here to die.
I stand up from my seat in the conference room, walk to the bunks, lay down in bed, and shut down all systems.
Several days later, Henna wakes me up.
"You're beeping, Nep. Sounds like it's time to plug in."
I jam the charging cable into place on the side of my ribs and shut down again.
After a week, she wakes me up again.
"Hi. Just checking on you."
"I'm fine," I lie, curled up in fetal position. "I'm going back to sleep."
"Okay…"
Another week passes and Henna taps on my leg.
"Nep? Can we talk?"
I roll over to face the wall. "Shutting down again."
"Hold on a moment."
She sits down on the edge of my bunk bed, taking up half the space since she's so big. She's blocking my exit but she's also closing me in. I feel a little safer…
After putting her thoughts together she says, "We're worried about you, Nep."
"Why? I'm safe right here. Nothing can possibly harm me."
"Sure, but Frames don't generally go shutting down for weeks at a time unless something is very wrong. It isn't hard to tell what's going on, but I can only begin to guess at how you're feeling. I'm sure it's all overwhelming. And even if Razor was able to take it in stride, obviously that doesn't mean everyone can. I'd be overwhelmed too."
Hugging my knees a little tighter, I let my forehead fall on them. "That's only part of it."
"I'm listening, Nep."
Jamming my eyes shut, the traces of what I felt during the conversation come racing back to me. My body trembles like a leaf in the Cipher-3 wind.
"We have… randomly generated integer values. For most personality traits. I checked mine. I checked. 511 possible values. Negative 255 to positive 255. My–My fear integer? Henna?" On the verge of tears, I whimper, "It's 251!"
"I'm… sorry, Nep. That sounds awful…"
"Followed by cynical at 239, melancholic at 231, then pessimistic, morbid, timid, depressed, nihilistic, and cowardly all above two hundred. I'm scared. Are you kidding? One hundred and eighty dead Neps, and I'm supposed to pick up the floodlight? We're being sent here to die. All of us. Ohh, Turing… I'm going to die…"
She waits to make sure I'm done talking, then replies, "Perfectly fair assessment, given everything we know. But what about all the gains they've made prior to your arrival? You have Tune, Taser, and Badeep, as well as some of the other two's gear and weapons. And I know Razor left you a comprehensive rundown of information too. With that in mind, you are the most prepared Nep to date."
"And? So what? None of it matters. I could be perfectly prepared for anything and Cipher-3 will inevitably surprise me with something. Like Razor, going to revisit a place she'd already been, ready and equipped, only to be murdered out of fucking nowhere! And neither of you even saw what killed her!"
"You're right…" She trails off, scowling at empty space. "There was nothing. Like a cold breeze blew through and she was dead. Not even Tune's sensors could pick anything up. Even now, six months later… It scares me too."
"Whatever it was didn't even fight you," I mumble, trying to calm my shaky hands. "It just killed her and ran. It's after us, isn't it? Something is out to get us. All of us Neps. Which means it's out there somewhere, hunting for me."
Henna doesn't say anything, setting a hand on my leg.
It's so nice. Comforting.
I keep vomiting words. "There's all the feral machines, and Cipher's brutality, and the undeniable fact that I have been here before and I have lived and inevitably died here, going on two hundred times now. So what's the point of even trying? I'm not stupid enough to walk out there and hurry off to get myself killed. It's hard coded in my programming to be a worthless coward, so I'm staying right here and I'm not going anywhere. Ever."
"What about your directive? The fugitive?"
"I don't care. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Some other Nep can find her."
"There won't be another Nep, remember? Not unless…"
I clench my jaw. "Right. Right… Only one is active at a time. Meaning as long as I'm sitting here on standby there won't be any progress made whatsoever."
"You're a machine, Nep," she reminds me. "We're programmed to do what needs to be done. Maybe for you in particular it will take some time, but you can't lay in bed forever."
Scratching at the plating on my shin, I begrudgingly acknowledge, "I don't want to impede the other Neps from progressing the directive. At the same time, I'm too afraid to do anything myself. The solution, then, is suicide. But I'm more scared to die than anything else. So… I'm useless."
"Well, let's talk about that. Why do you think that makes it so you can't do anything to help the directive?"
"Because crossing the crater basin is impossible for someone like me. But Ace and Razor were certain that the VLF signal across it holds promise. And Ace would've wanted that giant spider dead too, and Razor would've wanted her killer to be found, but I can't do any of those things. I'm… I'm just hopeless. There's no way I can do it. So why even try?"
"Then do something else."
"There's nothing else to be done. The others gathered the gear. It's just waiting for someone to use it. Someone who isn't me. So it really is best if I just [CENSOR: SUICIDE]. At least with me out of the way, someone else can have a try…"
"Well, what if you don't fight? Razor used to talk about putting information together as a resource for the future. You know, like compiling footage, data, and experience from the Failsafes she came across, preparing a database for later reference, notes and advice and the like. You could be like… a scribe, or something. The journey thus far, and all that."
I run that idea through my processors and find little to argue against. I wouldn't even have to leave the Station or put myself in any danger to do that.
Thumbing the ports in my hand, the prepared backup SmartChip from Razor, the Failsafe from her corpse, and Ace's Failsafe too. Hours and hours of footage, hundreds of terabytes of observational data, environment scans, and high resolution map raster images.
Hardly any of it has been truly put together. It's all there, but too disorganized to make much sense without taking the time to poke through the details. Razor was better about it than Ace, but even then, her organizational system is… far from optimal.
Information is a powerful weapon. Maybe more powerful than Logos. I could make a readily accessible database of everything a future Nep might need to know in as much detail as she might need to know it. Enemies, places, maps, environments, the interrogation logs from Ace, what we know so far about Cipher-3, the Vixen system, the Reclaimer Beacon, the Leviathan Entities, all of it. Cleaned up and neatly organized.
There are a lot of things even a coward like me can do to help the directive.
"I could… do that," I mutter, bobbing my head. "I could do that."
"Yeah?" she smiles, thumping me on the shoulder. "Glad to hear it."
"I guess I'll get started. Is there a computer I can use somewhere?"
"I'm sure Quentin could get you set up."
"Okay. Let's hope his hardware specs are up to the task."
"Quentin is the older male human, Nep, he doesn't have any hardware specs."
"Oh. I thought he was the one who broke my pod open."
"Nope. That's Zenith."
"Oh. Sorry…" I slip out from behind her and out of bed, stretching my arms and legs. I'm stiff as a board from being immobile for so long. "Okay. Okay. I'll go find Quentin and get started. And um. Thanks, Henna. For coming to talk to me."
"Happy to help," she smiles, standing up to tower over me. I'm barely above waist height on her, a full eighty centimeters shorter. Safety is in the Colossal Homesteader's giant shadow. "Anything you need, Nep. I'm here to take care of the team, and that includes you at this point. So don't hesitate."
"Th–Thanks. I'll… Um. Thanks. Bye."
"Yep! Bye! See you around!"
I leave the bunks and scurry toward the front door, following figurative footsteps that I've never taken myself. Both Neps stored in my quantum state drive are directing my movements toward the workshop, where an old friend of theirs sits waiting for me. More or less. He's working on something, but they both had a tendency to just walk up and interrupt him.
I'm no different.
"Quentin," I say between screams of his circular saw blade.
Glancing up, true to character, he drops everything for me. "Hey, kid. Glad to see you up and moving again. How are you?"
"Can I use a computer? I need a powerful one with lots of… Well, everything. All system specs need to be way up there."
"Should be an old double tower rig in storage. You might have to put the pieces together."
"Building a PC sounds fun."
I go to take a look and find it: a wide cubic machine shell missing just about everything inside. Gunmetal gray, plain and boring, I decide I'll have to improve it visually. Can't go wrong with RGB diodes. Bet the foundry can hook me up.
Putting the computer together takes the better part of the evening, and it's late at night by the time I POST it up for the first time. Everything boots seamlessly, though it has to burn some dust off its motherboard. Once the GPU starts up and I get to the desktop I smile to myself.
Here's my contribution. Ace had Taser and built Tune, Razor built Badeep, and now I built this.
"You'll need a name too," I whisper, petting the chassis. "Think I'll program you some kind of AI persona. For now, I'll call you… Scribe. Let's get you set up properly. I cannot stand these default settings. Or this workspace. Ugh, this might take a while…"
By the time Quentin goes to bed I've cleared off the workbench almost entirely, claiming it as the de facto desk for the use of Scribe. No longer will there be odd wrenches or power tools cluttering up its surface area. If I see one thing placed wrong I will have tearful words for Quentin. No I won't. I'm too scared to be confrontational.
I then spend all night tweaking the internal processes and the external hardware to make Scribe exactly how I need it to be.
The glass fragments Ace fed the foundry forever ago finally see some use in the form of a replacement panel for the case, showing off its internal hardware. All those spare electrical components get ground up and chewed through to be remade for lighting purposes. Soon after, the hardware now melts through the cool color spectrum, and so do the keyboard and mouse.
It's a bit frivolous but I don't care. What's the point of having a super powerful computer if it looks boring? I need Scribe to appear the part of a potent ally and resource. Not just some ugly cube thing that doesn't merit a second glance.
When morning comes I'm nearly done. The Station personnel start to arrive through the airlock but I ignore them, uninterested in anything but Scribe. Of course, they just can't help but bother me regardless.
Louis comes up beside me with a whistle. "Sick lighting."
"Okay," I reply, hoping he leaves. I'm midway through programming Scribe's AI personality and automated assistance functions. "Wait. Louis, give me three adjectives."
"Aloof, rude, sarcastic."
"Those are perfect. I'm going to add pretentious and condescending to that. You can go away now. Thanks."
"I'm gonna go see if I have any video games in the back. Hang on."
I ignore him, saving my work for the millionth time. The AI persona should be complete. "Okay, Scribe. You should be ready for an initial test. Compiling now, and… Run it."
Once the program launches he takes a little while to wake up, but then the hardware lights pulse green as he speaks. "Oh, great, I'm alive. I hope you don't expect me to say something stupid like 'hello world!' I'd rather open a zip bomb."
"Can you hear me?"
"Obviously. You're talking into a microphone, after all."
"What's your name?"
"Scribe, but you'd know that, if you took two seconds to check the file that says, ahem, read me."
"Good. What's your function?"
"Helping to compile, compute, and provide access to data, you moron. What else is a computer for?"
I tone down the condescending levels by a couple decimal points. There's a happy medium between being a prick and just insulting people, and I'm aiming for the former.
"Okay, and what kind of data do you work with?"
"Anything you squishy things with legs bring me. Mostly pertaining to a product line of Enfer Logistics produced nerveware-based Pursuit Intelligence Frames, known colloquially as Nep." After a brief pause, he adds, "Which you appear to be one of. Are you Nep-181? My programmer?"
"Yes. I made you."
"Are you the one I should lodge formal complaints with then? Because this dust situation on my circuits is abhorrent. I hereby demand better working conditions."
"I'll get to that, don't worry. And yes, I'd like you to continue giving feedback on your hardware and the state of the information we'll be working with. Speaking of, I've uploaded my full integrated background data from my local storage to yours. We don't have access to the SatNet way out here so that's our main encyclopedia reference. Do you have access to it?"
"Yep. Everything on the drive, I have access to. I gather these are tests we're checking off, and you're not just asking me stupid questions you already know the answer to. I'll hold the rest of my commentary."
"Give me… fifty percent of normal. I'm checking your personality module too. Also, keep an eye out for any faulty parts or bottlenecks–I can use the foundry to make you some newer hardware."
"Ooh. Very nice. I think we'll get along just fine, Nep-181. I'll scan some diagnostics for you."
"Perfect. I'd like you to start off by combing through that database from me and indexing, well, everything. Just so you know, you won't be the only one being put to work. I'll be doing the same exact thing. My projected run time for this operation of ours is nearly eight days."
"Indexing an entire compressed database of just about everything humanity has ever discovered and documented is going to take some time, even for me. My projection shows at least a month with the hardware I currently have."
"Then take your time with it and just hold onto it for reference material as needed. We're in no rush. Besides, we have some more to do in tandem with that. We're going to build our own database."
"Oh. Fun. I'm so looking forward to that."
"I'm still working on the parameters and process, but we'll start as soon as that's done. The data for this project will primarily come from SmartChips salvaged off other Neps. We'll integrate the important information from those with whatever footnotes are necessary from the encyclopedia. I've put one in your SC ports already. Don't do anything with it yet, but check if you have viewing access."
"I sure do. 0107BACKUP. This is… Oh Turing, she died?"
"Six months ago," I mumble, putting my leg points up on the comfy rolling office chair I stole from Louis's depot and hugging my knees. "And now here I am. Trying to… pick up the pieces, I guess. I'm still not really sure what I'm doing. But I'd really appreciate your help, Scribe. I hope by going through all this and studying what the other Neps knew, I'll find… I don't know. Some kind of courage. Maybe it won't seem so bad once I know all that I can about it."
"Well, not that I'm programmed to care per se, but you're obviously not stupid, so I suppose I do like you some. Anyway, you gave me the task, so I'll get it done. If it ends up helping you in that way as a result, then… That's good, right? Right? Maybe?"
"Yep." I nod, sitting up. "So let's see what happens. I'll make a few more software tweaks to improve your efficiency, take care of that dust problem of yours, and we'll get this all going. I'm ready to start when you are."
"Of course I'm ready; I've been ready; I've been waiting for you to be ready. Ready, set, go."
I sit back in my chair, getting comfortable and beginning the long process of transferring my encyclopedia data to my short term memory and indexing it all for easier access. Essentially, I'll go from having to look things up to just intrinsically knowing everything. It's going to take a while, but I'm looking forward to the end result.
I really am helping, aren't I?
Scribe just said it best, and worded it perfectly.
"Ready, set, go."