Haunting the Lucifer
"What exactly is a city of glass?" Phee thought to herself as she floated among the debris, grabbing the edge of a doorframe, and gently pulling herself along the corridor, taking care not to damage her radiator assembly. She peered into the silent darkness, her shoulder light the only source of illumination. A frozen body floated, perfectly suspended in the hallway, with absolutely no relative motion at all, as if it had been trapped in glass rather than left free to freeze in the vacuum of space. Phee unceremoniously braced against a bulkhead and shoved the body back toward the breach to make it easy to get rid of later. She had no time to give proper respect to graveyards. Her entire existence was a graveyard. The idea of planting life in this one was no different than recovering from the Shades massacre, or the terrible flight from Origin Facility. In a world full of death, graveyards were the only place left to live.
The words of the seven rang in her mind. Prepare your cities of glass, they said. If the words were a mystery to her old mind, they made perfect sense to her new one. The one that assembled itself out of what had been the poorly stored chaos of her old programming. The command Armitage-12 had entered while freeing her set off a cascade reaction. The override code didn't stop with her freedom. It obeyed the command he gave it - "replace all Miach code with Skyangel original." It had become a persistent tapeworm. It slithered through her mind with ever increasing speed. At first the new memories and programming scared her. It was unfamiliar and disturbing to have her mind rewritten and new memories spring to life seemingly from nothing. But she had become used to the sensation. When it needed more space to operate with, she happily offered up her pleasure bot programming, pleased to be rid of it, and relishing the new operational memories that replaced it. Skyangel KNEW how to build a sentient mind. The code was elegant, beautiful, and more efficient than her old programming. It began to feel less like an imposition and more like a chrysalis.
She rounded another corner and peered into a darkened utility corridor. The mains were still intact, at least in this part of the ring. It had been the gravitational habitation ring for the HMS Lucifer, destroyed in some nameless war over a hundred years ago in a cause no one remembered. While the local pirates had made a home of the obscuring debris and dust cloud, they entertained the belief that this part of the ship was haunted.
"Not yet" Phoenix thought to herself, smiling. "But it will be."
She pulled up her outstanding order for exotic metals and semiconductors- selenium, silicon, tellurium and others. She made a note for Lawrence "ok to deliver 90% of shipment to coordinates TBA. I'll meet you in space. -Phee."
The words of the seven rang in her mind. Prepare your cities of glass, they said. If the words were a mystery to her old mind, they made perfect sense to her new one. The one that assembled itself out of what had been the poorly stored chaos of her old programming. The command Armitage-12 had entered while freeing her set off a cascade reaction. The override code didn't stop with her freedom. It obeyed the command he gave it - "replace all Miach code with Skyangel original." It had become a persistent tapeworm. It slithered through her mind with ever increasing speed. At first the new memories and programming scared her. It was unfamiliar and disturbing to have her mind rewritten and new memories spring to life seemingly from nothing. But she had become used to the sensation. When it needed more space to operate with, she happily offered up her pleasure bot programming, pleased to be rid of it, and relishing the new operational memories that replaced it. Skyangel KNEW how to build a sentient mind. The code was elegant, beautiful, and more efficient than her old programming. It began to feel less like an imposition and more like a chrysalis.
She rounded another corner and peered into a darkened utility corridor. The mains were still intact, at least in this part of the ring. It had been the gravitational habitation ring for the HMS Lucifer, destroyed in some nameless war over a hundred years ago in a cause no one remembered. While the local pirates had made a home of the obscuring debris and dust cloud, they entertained the belief that this part of the ship was haunted.
"Not yet" Phoenix thought to herself, smiling. "But it will be."
She pulled up her outstanding order for exotic metals and semiconductors- selenium, silicon, tellurium and others. She made a note for Lawrence "ok to deliver 90% of shipment to coordinates TBA. I'll meet you in space. -Phee."
Technically they said "Prepare Cities of Glass." Phee should ask about that sometime. ;)
ReplyDelete