Argus
patreon
Kitty Cat Kill Sat - Chapter 8
🕑 Added 2021-09-11 01:44:42 +0000 UTCSomewhere overhead
I see them looking upward
This moon does not love
I am a genius.
I am an idiot.
I am a chaotic formation of problem solving power, wrapped up in an anxiety-ridden and possibly haunted body, suffering from an incomplete and possibly decaying uplift, using tools of unimaginable power to solve problems they weren’t built for.
Ahem.
Okay, it’s been about a week. Let me sum up.
I’ve unlocked another door, this one to a different machine that is the thing that produces replacements for the flak webs that one my close-defense weapons fires. Which is… I mean, I needed more of those, I guess? But I also didn’t, because I’ve fired it exactly once, and I’m still not sure it’s actually supposed to be a weapon.
I’ve pseudo-automated the jury rigged ‘communication’ path that Glitter and I have going. I’ve done this not by any clever programming or application of any important technology, but by reclassifying the drones as missiles. The station doesn’t care if missiles are on guided fire paths. Only drones. What is the difference between a missile and a drone? Classification. I am, in my *bones*, positive that this is one of those weird stapled-on software patches from an occupying group that came after the station was built, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out who.
I’ve cleared a few square meters of space debris. Most of it wasn’t a real hazard, but quite a bit of it was useful metals that I can return to the Earth in one way or another.
I’ve determined that the station is not haunted. I have… I have determined this. Because ghosts aren’t real, and because… because it has to be true. If the station were haunted, that would be an unsolvable, impossible problem. So I must proceed as if it were not, regardless. So I have determined that the station is not haunted.
I’ve also, and this is important, *realized how stupid I have been for the last hundred years or so*.
I’ve known for a while that the station can read text. It’s what I learned to write from in the first place, after all. Though I don’t tend to write much, and learning in the first place was mostly a hobby and not anything serious. It’s been getting a lot more of a workout now that I’m talking to Glitter. But the thing that I’ve known from the start is that the station will not accept written commands, unless the individual doing the writing is flagged as ‘disability, vocal’. Which I am not. Because my vocal capacity is species-standard.
And it would just be *Rude* to insinuate that a species characteristic is a disability.
So rather than *change the language they used*, the incompetents that ran the bureaucracy that set the standards for accessibility in their society created a web of contradictions that *actively lock out* members of certain species. Like, for example, cats.
Now. Being as fair as I care to, they didn’t actually have uplifted cats at the time. In fact, while I don’t actually have a historical record available, I would hazard a guess that they were an entirely human civilization back then. So it’s hard to look at their lack of future proofing as a form of racism or anything. In fact, they seemed to go out of their way in some places to actively future proof for other species. Like how the cleaning nanos are pre-calibrated to adapt to new species. Good job, past humans.
So that’s the situation. I can write, the station can read, but written orders from someone who isn’t actively disabled don’t get recognized. And yes, there *is* a fast workaround to that, which is to laser my own throat open, and then present written orders before crawling into a vivification pod and not dying.
But that workaround is stupid, and I’ve been avoiding doing it, because… because of all the obvious reasons. I don’t feel like I should explain why I’ve been avoiding crippling myself. You probably should have figured this out at least a paragraph ago.
The workaround becomes even stupider when I make a certain mental connection. See, the station - which presumably has a name but I’ve been able to learn it - the station is *old*. It’s old because it was built to last, and it’s old because it’s gone through multiple owners since it was built.
And that last part is where things get fun.
See, the station was centuries old by the time I was born. The Oceanic Anarchy - who were, as mentioned, very good hearted, but sometimes continue to be frustrating - laid the groundwork. Self-repair features, symbiotic nanoswarms, the airlocks are even designed to modulate themselves for future additions, *just in case* I want to absorb another space station into my realm.
But the Ays weren’t the only owner of the station. They lost it, and the next batch of humans to come up here, Real America, were… well armed, slightly less well intentioned, and dramatically worse at digital security. They’re where the drone bays and a lot of the guns come from.
But even they weren’t the last. There are signs of UBSR construction, all sharp lines and harsh functionality, in a lot of the outer parts of the station that link up to the magnetic repulsor fields. Similarly, there’s ‘Ralian touches to most of the furniture, which was reshaped when the supercity of Melbourne launched an exploratory expedition and started trying to revitalize orbital infrastructure. And Luna Polis code and formatting in a lot of the AR, patches upon patches as the second to last occupying party did what the others hadn’t needed to, and started altering the station’s programming to work with what they needed.
This isn’t even counting all the random pieces of other stations or satellites that both prior residents and myself have stolen from orbit.
My home is a hodgepodge of hallways, airlocks, guns, factories, sensor pods, guns, life support, access shafts, engines, solar panels, crew quarters, cargo bays, corridors, and guns.
And for well over half of it? The Oceanic Anarchy didn’t have a single finger on the construction of those pieces. Oh, once they were part of the station, they were wired into the command and control programming just the same. But you know what you need to be able to do *without* a centralized control AI?
Open doors.
I have been, in general, hesitant to try to cut my way through the variety of locked doors and barred passageways. Even with my upgraded suit, I still don’t think I could survive retaliation from a station that had decided I was hostile. But wandering around, retasking one of those little beetle-shaped robots that checks the floors for cracks to follow me while holding up a sign? That was *easy*.
I am three doors deep in a crew quarter section, going through my strangely derived ritual of meowing loudly enough to attract the attention of the station’s AI, working slowly through the AR interface to request a systems check of the rooms, positioning my robot helper in view of the individual door’s exterior camera, and making sure I am both flagged as a station officer, and also pointing at the sign, when the system check resolves.
This has worked *once* so far. But it had worked on the door to a Luna Polis fungal laboratory that had been sitting untended for several hundred years. So that was… um…
That was…
An… experience? An experience. An experience which will remain seared into both my memory, and my sense of smell, for years to come. Though hopefully not remaining in the ventilation systems, if the purification nanos did their work right. Or my blood, if the emergency antifungal medications also work right.
Mushroom hell aside, it *might* work again. And so, I continue to find time to try it out, in between everything else.
Everything else like the alarm currently sounding, midway through my attempt to get a camera to acknowledge that the presented sign that reads “open the door” in shaky laser-carved letters.
The alarm that is in the process of interrupting me is the one that indicates an incoming communication, and for a second, my heart beats faster as I wonder briefly if Glitter has found a way to contact me.
But I smother that hope I quickly as I start sprinting. The seed that the tired old AI gave me is still unfurling digital tendrils in a partitioned part of the systems, and nothing in my daily messages from Glitter indicate that this is something possible. Though it has been asking a lot of history questions lately, and I of it; filling in gaps in our respective knowledge. And there are a *lot* of gaps.
I arrive at the relevant comms station where the guiding AR lines have brought me. It is, in its design, another constant reminder that humans just didn’t build things for anything a foot tall and quadruped. A quick hop puts me in the chair, and I can finally disable the alarm.
I talk about the alarms a lot, but I need you to understand. They are loud. They are all loud. There is no such thing as a small alarm, or a low priority alarm. They are *different* in texture and their particular warbles, but they are all loud. Because when the station only has one crew, everything is a critical emergency. I hate them.
And this one turns off, blissfully, as I paw the button to accept the incoming communication.
Readouts show the signal is coming from nearby, in orbit. But then, sophisticated counterintelligence software kicks to life, and I’m given a new piece of information. The signal is being spoofed. It’s actually originating on the surface. Somewhere in the middle of the Cosso rain forest, in southwest Brazil. Which is weird on its own.
There are two things in Brazil that I need to constantly keep an eye on. The first is the fact that the tree cover makes it a great place for emergence events to go unchecked, and as a result, most of the rainforest has a… *unique* ecosystem at this point. The second thing is that the second largest rainforest on the planet - coming in just behind the Sahara - is home to one of the last great living cities.
The city is sparsely populated, and largely seems content to keep to itself unless it’s actively protecting the border of its domain. But it’s one of the few things on the planet that could, if it wanted to, be a threat to me. We’ve never spoken, but this might actually be something from it.
I answer the call, and ring my small silver bell to indicate I am listening.
A voice comes through, clean and professional. Human, probably, but in a way that leaves me feeling uncomfortable. It speaks in Old Cossan, an amalgamate language from Avery long time ago. The station actually has the linguistic files on hand, and provides translation in real time for me.
A pleasant greeting, a small pause, and then, without any input on my part, the voice expresses delight that I’ve agreed with it. And then… a sales pitch? It is asking for financial account numbers, so it might renew the impact insurance on my orbital infrastructure.
I cut the connection. And then, I sit, unmoving on my haunches, letting the fact wash over me that there is an automated communication station on the surface, centuries old, that is still taking wild stabs at scamming people out of currency that hasn’t existed since before I was born.
I shake myself out of my stupor as my schedule pings at me. I am needed to renew the maintenance routine on the lower deck that manages micro fractures. I slide out of the chair, pad to the door, flicking my tail in idle astonishment.
And then another alarm sounds, rudely jolting me back to the present.
Another incoming communication request. But on a different frequency. This could be important, and the alarm is, again, *very* loud. I bolt down hallways, slide through a gravity tunnel, and into a *different* communication hub. This one much larger, with a half dozen stations. I think it was designed to manage inputs from multiple different extra addon parts late in the station’s life, and it being on the outer edge of the structure supports that theory. I paw the relevant screen, hit my ‘I am here’ bell, and wait.
A crisp woman’s voice in Old Cossan comes through again. And the words are an identical repeat of the last one.
A ripple of anger goes through me. Starting in my ears, and ending at the tip of my tail and the ends of my claws.
I have been *busy*. I have put every ounce of my spare time into projects, I have taken almost no naps this year. I have diligently protected the people of this system with every weapon I own. Every moment, I use to better myself and my home, or to fight back the darkness around us. And this… *thing*. This soulless robotic construct, is *wasting my time*.
I am halfway to my new destination before I start to really think about this. I have left the communication running, the automated voice asking questions on rote programming in a language I don’t speak.
The Verdopolis is a potential problem for me, yes. But it is sleeping, and it is also four hundred miles away from the source of this broadcast. In fact, the incoming call appears to be originating from a bunker that would have been running top of the line stealth technology back when it was built. But I look down from on high, and with eyes far stronger than its shields.
I do not think the living city will mind my intrusion. Especially if I restrain myself, and do not use the *exceptionally* large weaponry I am considering.
Nestled in my cradle, I kick a lever that rotates the selected munition. I find something small, armor piercing, and with a core of some strange non-causal material that leaves lingering EM fields when exposed to atmosphere. They don’t have a name, but then, a lot of my ammunition isn’t labeled beyond a numerical designation. I decide to call these Caller’s ID’d.
The station plates around me vibrate as I lock on and pull the trigger. I use a low velocity overhead shot, so I minimize collateral damage to the surrounding trees and plants. ‘Low velocity’ of course is still more than enough to accomplish the objective.
The voice, still echoing through the internal comms, cuts off abruptly. Static follows. I strut a bit as I return to the comms room to shut off the connection, and then pull my head back into the game. I have chores to accomplish.
As I turn off the communication panel, there is a click. And I must be mishearing, because it sounds like the organic click of a human tongue, not the electric snap of a shifted switch. The kind of noise someone makes when they’re a little exasperated with you.
But I must be hearing things. There is a click, and a sigh, and the station shuts down. And I don’t think about it. Because I have chores to do.
And certainly not for any other reasons.
Comments
Argus
Well, we are *now*
Rodney Maestrado
Even after the world ends, we are not free of unwanted scam callers and intrusive advertisement
Xavier Lamphere
When whatever this not ghost is is revealed, I anticipate being equal parts relieved and frustrated.
