Do I feel any braver? No.
Do I feel any more prepared? Also no.
Have I found the courage I hoped to find? Again, no.
With my eyes barely able to stay open, having been awake without rebooting or going on standby for at least six days, I continue nitpicking the details of the armrippers' profile report. Relative TFC ranges between fifty five to seventy points. Their approximate movement speed is sixty five kilometers per hour in terms of their burst dash to blindside people. Warning characteristics and danger classifications: speed, agility, dismembering, lapse in focus, ambushers.
The text blurs in front of me on screen. I don't know what time it is. I don't know how long I've been sitting here. I'm starting to lose track of what I'm doing. I keep editing the same line, forgetting if I did, retyping it out, realizing I already did it, and then a few seconds later I go back to start the cycle over.
Scribe speaks for the first time in hours. "Are you having issues? Besides the usual, I mean."
It makes me flinch. "I forgot you were still running."
"These repeat inputs are annoying and distracting. Quit fat fingering my keyboard and go to bed. You're obnoxious."
I don't have it in me to argue, giving the 3D model render of the armripper one final spin before tossing my hands up and rolling my chair back. The foundry is in the process of 3D printing scale figurines of the feral machines the other Neps have documented.
There's a new plan in the queue, a design Scribe managed to put together for me. Turns out he can do that–design foundry blueprints. I just asked him to find a way to make my idea work and he found it. Begrudgingly. By now his personality module is fine tuned just where I wanted it to be.
He's a total fucking prick.
Quentin watches me go, saying nothing. When I pass the depot Louis calls out, asking if I want to play more video games on Scribe. I stare him down as I pass, my eyes dead and likely transmitter-shot. There's my answer. After trudging my way to the bunks I fall face first into bed, fumbling with the charging cable. It won't go in one way, nor the other, but it works when I switch back to the first.
Make it make sense.
It is bedtime for me.
Even in standby, my mind can't stop churning. Images of a past I wasn't alive for, the scrapyard, the bunker, the crater basin's edge. Observational data I didn't record, like ghosts across my memory. Voices, words, phrases, next to none of them tangible. A sensation, like the breeze on my skin, a passing presence, an echo of a feeling.
Yours won't. None of them ever will, Alice.
Errors shriek my demise. I never saw it coming.
What else can I do but scream? How cruel to have let me taste hope.
I'm dying, being chewed by corrosion. Dissolving.
I wonder how it feels for you to have lost so much.
Who said that? Why do I know that voice?
Come here, Alice! Look what I found for you!
She's smiling at me. She's so happy to see me.
How many times will it take for you to wake up?
She looks dead. She looks at me like she's dead.
It's all going to fall apart if you don't wake up, Alice.
Wake up? How many times? How many times?
"You've been asleep for ages," Henna says. "Think it's–"
I sit up with a scream.
She yelps right back. "Oh, Turing! I'm sorry!"
Grasping my chest, taking panicked breaths, I fight the feeling of impending death. My heart is racing like I'm in combat, skin flushed and sweaty, limbs feverish and trembling. Something awful is happening, something horrible is about to–about to…
Nothing happens. It's quiet inside the Station.
Henna's eyes are wide, hands raised, frozen in place. "I am so sorry!"
My sensors frantically scan the area, finding nothing out of place. No shadows in the room. No threat about to descend on us. Just… normal. I take a deep breath, still not convinced of my safety. It felt so real, like I was in immediate danger. What the hell just happened to me?
She waits for me to look at her to say anything else. "There you are. Hey. It's me. You're safe. Nothing is happening. I just wanted to check on you, get you up for a little. I didn't think you'd…"
One more scan, triple checking. Clear.
After a deep breath, I mumble, "Shit. Scared me to death, Henna."
"I'm sorry," she says again, then gives me an attempt at a smile. "Bad dreams?"
"Horrible." I roll over and sit on the side of my bunk next to her, holding my head with my eyes closed. After a little while, I eject Ace's and Razor's Failsafe SmartChips, setting them in my black gunmetal palm to stare at them. "That was… so strange."
She doesn't pry, only watching me.
With Henna near, a feeling of safety does eventually come to me.
"I saw their deaths," I explain, scowling at the two Chips. "Heard things. From their memory. Not like I was observing, it was like I was them. And… Another one too. A third Nep, maybe? I don't know what it was. I can't tell if it was something connected to us or if it was just a weird dream. But it felt so real, like I was there. Like I was… someone else."
"That sounds horrible." She gives me a long look, shifting in place, obviously unsure how to handle this. "You don't have Nep-67 or Nep-92 in there, do you?"
I shake my head, letting myself slouch forward.
"Well, like you said. It could have just been a weird dream." She sets her hand on my back. "Are you okay?"
That feels nice. Grounding. I lean into it, resting my head on her arm and closing my eyes. "I'm okay. Thanks."
We sit like that for a long time.
I don't know how long. I start to doze off.
She eventually shifts her arm to wake me. "I bothered you to get you up, but maybe you do need some more rest."
Yawning, rubbing my eyes, I murmur, "Why? Is something going on?"
"You've been out cold for two days. Nothing's happening, but I thought maybe you should get up and move around a little."
I slowly blink, staring at her. "What's that supposed to mean, Henna?"
"Well," she says, looking elsewhere and rubbing the back of her neck. "We, um. The rest of us talked and we all agreed that maybe we could be more, um, encouraging. To you."
"Encouraging how? What are you talking about?"
"We think you should go outside," she exhales all at once.
"Excuse me?"
"You've been cooped up in here for weeks. It's unhealthy."
"Says who?"
"The basics of our documentation. We have synthetic organ structures so we need exercise and activity to be well."
"Activity? Scribe and I are working our solder off on this project, Henna."
"Yeah, obviously you're working hard, but you're always hunched over that keyboard, and it cannot be good for you. I'm talking about actually moving. With your legs. So, let's go do something! You and I.
"Zenith put you up to this, didn't he?"
"It was my idea," she beams. "What do you think? We could do anything. Maybe scout out the basin? Or make a bunker run? Maybe the junkyard?"
I stare, waiting for her to make the connection before giving up and saying it out loud. "All three of those places killed me or nearly killed me."
"Oh… Right."
"Yeah. Right. Thank you, Henna, but I'm not going anywhere past that airlock. Ever. Maybe I'll do a few laps around the interior forest today but it's too dangerous out there for me."
She hesitates, then sighs. "Okay. It was only a suggestion. I'm just trying to help."
"I know. It's nice. But I'm… too much of a shameless coward to do anything like that. So…"
She touches my back again. "Well, hey. You're aware of your difficulties, at least. That's the first step."
"And it's probably going to be the last one… I'm not sure how or if anything will ever change. It's in my programming to be like this."
"Well, I'm going to keep encouraging you regardless."
"I wouldn't mind that." Hugging onto her strong arm, I sigh. "You make me feel safe, Henna. Will you take a nap with me? Just a little longer? I promise I'll walk after…"
"Hm? Oh! Well… I'm done with my work for now, so sure! Let's."
When I lay down with her, it's kind of ridiculous. "Turing, you're huge."
"And you're so little!" she snickers, wrapping me up in her giant arms and hugging me against her giant body, my back to her front. "I've never even seen a Spectral Variant before you. You're barely up to my waist when we're standing! So cute!"
"Th–Thanks…" I hum with satisfaction, getting comfortable against her and hugging her arms around me. With my eyes closed, I take a deep breath and sigh. "Henna, I… I think I'm a lost cause. I really don't get it. Why am I like this if none of the others were? That was rhetorical, it's the stupid integer values. But I hate it. I feel so worthless…"
"I think you're just stuck," she counters, nuzzling her cheek against my head. "You'll get there, wherever there is for you. I know you will."
"Well, I appreciate your confidence in me…"
"I believe in you, little Nep. I know you can do it."
Those words echo across my processors. I don't even know what to say to that, so I don't say anything. Henna really is a gem. I have to take a moment to try discerning if what I'm feeling right now is simple endearment or potential affection. As if I have any idea how to make that call.
I know nothing about emotional states. Nor do I care.
They're frivolous. Distracting. Hindering.
But…
She's warm, big, and strong. She makes me feel safe.
I like laying with her like this. I like it a lot.
I'm shutting down forever now.
Two days later, I wake up on my own.
Sitting up in bed, I stretch my arms overhead and grumble and moan. Not a single electric dream that time. Ejecting the Failsafe Chips must have done it. Or something like that. Not a statistically significant sample size to say with any amount of confidence.
Well, I'm rested. I'm reset. I'm restarted.
Standing up, I stretch out my legs too and send a quick message.
nEPI-0181> u left me…
HENNA> AWWW! Nep! I had to get up and do things! <3
nEPI-0181> I know… um. drink? pls?
HENNA> Absolutely! I'm working outside right now but there's a bunch of my antifreeze mixer in the fridge :) Help yourself!
nEPI-0181> ty
nEPI-0181> wait do u heat it or
HENNA> I do but you can drink it cold too!
nEPI-0181> k
In the kitchen area, I pour myself a cup and take a long drink of it cold. Thick, viscous, hearty, sweet, filling, and slightly tart. "Oh fuck, that's good. Damn. I could get addicted to that shit…"
Louis intercepts me on my way to the workshop. "Heyo! Been looking for you. Feel like another game of Star Cross or Vengeance?"
"Don't you have a job or something?"
"Well, yeah, but–"
"I'm kidding, bro. Lock in. Vengeance all day."
"Yes! Let's go, bro! I'll hit you up."
Quentin and I trade nods when I arrive but neither of us say anything. The foundry has completed the 3D figurines of our potential enemies, but it's still working on the piece of hardware I was really hoping would be done by now. Guess it isn't that easy to fabricate something so finicky or sensitive.
Whatever.
I drop into my desk chair and toss my headphones on, readying up the mouse and keys. "Hey, Scribe."
"Oh, no. Is it game time?"
"It's game time. Lock in."
"If only we had SatNet connection to slaughter real players."
"We'd go grandmaster in hours. It wouldn't even be fair."
Louis is ringing me for voice chat. Once I join he blurts, "Game time."
"Bro, you already know it's game time," I snicker, inviting him and Scribe to a lobby then launching the match. Vengeance is a first person shooter and I'm fucking unstoppable at it. Against bots, anyway. "Louis, what was it you said to Ace? Something about gaming?"
"Pfft! I said I'd make a gamer girl out of her! Does this still count?"
"Made a gamer girl out of me."
We load in and start shooting killer robots, the irony of which is not lost on me.
Louis laughs, "Even knowing she downloaded the information, I was still like… Do I say that modded hardware is like enchanted armor?"
"Pfft! Yes, hello, blacksmith. Might I peruse your wares in the hopes of finding some gloves of pickpocketing? Or perhaps some boots of springheel? A hat of perception, mayhaps?"
"I was so close to just saying the NeutroChips are perma buffs to base stats but nooo chance." His character steals my kill so I gun him down with friendly fire. "Hey! Rude!"
"Sucks to suck, bitch boy."
I blink and it's twenty nine hours later, and I'm playing all alone.
I'm bored so I drop the game, about to go to bed.
"Nep," Scribe says. "Want to test out that new hardware?"
"Oh, it's done? Huh. No. Bed. Tomorrow."
"If it works, you could game in neural reality…"
"Sold." Excitedly dropping it on my desk and getting it hooked up, I wiggle the mouse and run the software. "Move over. I'm coming in."
"Just don't touch anything, you germ covered physical object."
I plug the cable to the base of my skull where it meets my spine then sit back, closing my eyes. In a rush of data transfer I transmit myself through the interface I built and come up parallel to Scribe's operating system. The digital space takes the form of a white abyss of streaming binary code fragments and lines of programming.
All it takes is a thought, a notion for it to change.
An expansive museum forms within a gargantuan expanse of white marble. I designed the place based off of the architectural work of Etienne-Louis Boullee, a personal favorite. The museum is awe-inspiring in size and scope, the ceiling so high above that clouds form within the confines. Arches and columns of godlike mythic proportions rise from all around. The space is so absurdly large that it instills into me a feeling of inconsequence. Like I'm not even here.
Scribe's voice speaks from behind me. "A bit gauche, isn't it?"
My head is tilted all the way back, admiring the artwork on the distant ceiling kilometers above. "I couldn't disagree more."
"If you say so. Care for the tour?"
"Please."
He's taken the form of a handsome British man in his thirties, with stubble, glasses, and short hair, wearing a v-neck sweater and slacks–as if he has any room to call me gauche looking like that. And he has a posh London accent which Louis described as 'exceptionally dickish'. It is exactly what I was going for.
Scribe tells me, "This is, more or less, our digital world. Bit of a playground, if you will. Reality and its constraints are nonexistent. You make the input, I make it happen. Whatever form that takes. Care to give it a shot?"
"Hell yes. Simulate an armripper for me and tell me the profile details."
Binary strings float from elsewhere in the air and materialize into a rusted body, slim and agile, with its razor sharp claws and tilted posture, one red eye glowing.
Walking a half circle behind it, Scribe explains, "The MCDU-ED4938, Mobile Construction and Demolition Unit–Extraction Digger. The armripper. A machine built for material and debris removal on build sites, mostly suited to clearing up the mess other machines make. They are the only MCDU models with opposable thumbs, fun fact."
"I didn't know that. Great detail."
"That's how they get hold of things, namely limbs, as poor Razor was so unfortunate to experience. Based on the hardware recovered from the dead armrippers in the field–that is, the corpses Henna brought back from the bunker–I have a clearer sense for what's going on with these little buggers. Their targeting of limbs stems from a corrupted mind, of course, but they mistake the dangly bits as loose cables that need trimming."
"Makes sense." I cross my arms and study the machine, its wiring and rusted chassis. "Why are they so violent?"
"As with all the rest? Time and erosion," he explains, slapping it over the head. Tong. "Any mind is susceptible to decay, and machines' are no different. Ironically, DIs like Taser and Badeep, on account of their rudimentary nature, are actually the most stable mental processing suites available to robotics. In contrast, MIs are the most vulnerable to mental degradation, simply by nature of their programming being so fraught with variables and somewhat prone to RAM leakage. But… With sixty years to rot without any kind of maintenance, anyone would lose their marbles. Even Frames."
"Right." I slowly nod, watching the glass rotate and the red light focus and unfocus. "What causes a machine to go feral?"
"Negligence, damage, isolation, unchecked neuroticism, trauma–the potential causes list on. In most cases here on Cipher-3, at least for the machines we have data on so far, the root cause seems to of course be negligence. Simple failures of upkeep and routine maintenance. Not enough 'turning it off and back on again', so to speak. All those errors and memory leaks have run rampant and strained the hardware to the point of severe degradation."
"Because the terraformers left sixty years ago and abandoned all these machines."
"Correct. Although some, like the anklebiters," he says, spawning one next to the armripper for reference, "have much more robust methods of self regulation. That's why they're in such good condition, comparatively. They're DIs that constantly seek out new materials to rebuild themselves with. Unlike armrippers though, these little bastards are behaving exactly as programmed. In this case, their psychosis isn't from decay, but rather from an oversight in their behavioral coding."
"How's that? They wouldn't behave this way on a job site, would they?"
"No, but that's again where the conditions of Cipher-3 rear their ugly head. See, the anklebiters prioritize self preservation first above all else. Since the conditions here are so harsh, they're almost constantly damaged in some way and in need of repairs. So, it's an endless cycle of fixing themselves using whatever materials they can find, even if that means consuming another active machine. Just by sheer numbers, there are always a solid chunk of these things that have managed to fix themselves enough to overcome the hunger, though. In which case they go back to routine function."
I crouch to examine its vicious pincers, poking the metal and turning the hinge. "And what is their routine function?"
"SRC-AB98, that's Salvage Recovery Collection–Automatic Builders. They salvage debris and scrap for parts to repair the other MIs and DIs. That's likely why so many of the larger machines are still standing to this day."
"It's like an ecosystem, isn't it?"
"That's one way to put it. Only instead of consumption it's more of mutualism. The decomposers, the anklebiters, feed the machines which break up more materials for the anklebiters to feed themselves and the machines… Around and around we go."
He digitizes a headsmasher and a handful of anklebiters, letting a simulation of them fixing the hulking mass play out before us.
I watch the process, arms crossed. I find myself troubled. "So what does it mean to classify a machine as feral?"
"The general consensus is that it's a state of violent paranoid psychosis. Threats from every direction, more or less. Threats that must be destroyed before they do the feral machine harm. From their perspective, that is."
Swiping the simulations away, I ask, "Do you have anything on that Frame they encountered in the bunker? The neckbreaker?"
"Yes, I have a little. Here we go."
We stand before two bodies. The Frame man from Razor's memories stands in his feral, half rusted form, and an intact pristine copy stands next to him.
Scribe explains, "DCS-MI267-Serial units. Defensive Control Specialist–Military Issue. As Zenith calls them: neckbreakers."
"Them? Plural?"
"You heard me. They're standardized protection units on all Federation military sites. As for why they went feral, it's most likely a similar story of negligence. Isolation, lack of novel input, even their base functions contribute to the potential for psychotic behaviors. Guard this door, pending further notice. Sixty years later, along comes you, and that protection order still stands. Frame or not, you are unauthorized personnel."
"So how is it psychoticism? They're no longer in touch with reality?"
"Exactly. Imagine sixty years of standing in place, by yourself, with nothing to stimulate your sensors whatsoever. You'd go insane just the same. As for why it's considered psychotic, sometimes their sensors fire off for seemingly no reason. They tend to perceive threats that aren't actually there. And they're incapable of discerning you as anything other than hostile."
"Hm. Are there other Frames out there, do you think?"
"Yes. I do. There's a whole roster of potential Frame personnel left behind by the terraformers. Namely, the general lineup of them that accompany military personnel, everything from Troopers to Environmental Service Technicians."
"Hm. Okay. Going back a few bytes. You… You mentioned neuroticism as a potential cause."
"Yes, I would say with full objectivity that the state of your mindscape framework, Nep-181, appears to show significant risk of the same neurotic behaviors that could someday cause ferality."
My heart drops. "Wh–What? Me? I… Why me?"
"Think about it. You're already paranoid, nervous, anxious, and on edge. Sixty years from now? I'd be shocked if you haven't gone mad."
"So there is something wrong with me."
"You mean beyond the obvious?"
"What is the obvious? I don't know."
"Your fear, Nep."
"O–Oh. Can you change the value?"
"What do I look like, a neurological surgeon?"
"I think I need to take a break and go back to sleep."
"Neurotic behavior."
"Then I'd better make sure to [CENSOR: SUICIDE] before I go too crazy!"
I eject myself from the simulation, unplug the cable in my skull, and leave it all behind. Fleeing toward the bunks, I run and hide from the crushing fear that I'm going to go insane and lose my mind. Burying myself under the blankets, I curl up as small as possible, trembling to the smallest bolt and washer.
I wish I'd never asked. I wish he'd never told me. I wish I could fix myself but I can't. A new kind of fear sets in, like cold claws raking across my spine, like armripper hands reaching for me from every direction, like something is smothering me and choking the life right out of my systems.
This fear is inescapable.
Because what I fear is fear itself.
Most of all, I fear myself.