Alex was not enthused with the idea of retribution. He told himself that, very emphatically. That wasn’t how he was raised, it wouldn’t solve anything. It wasn’t the kind of person he was. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, and all that.
But there was a chance it might make him feel better. The thought did warm his soul, though the concept was extremely nebulous at the moment - easier to imagine it working out precisely that way, when it was just ‘the bad guys get theirs’ and that did not continue to ‘you collapsed a branch of the military and now the rest of it thinks you’re the bad guy’ which were two very different outcomes that might exist on the same path.
While Eleya would not expound upon what retribution meant while they were in an unsecured area, she did manage to talk him down from immediately destroying the collected files. The wonders a few calm and honeyed words could do when paired with some empathy. Alex would readily admit that it was strange chatting about the feeling of betrayal from your own government with the Empress of an alien Empire. She did have first hand experience with the subject, so when she said she understood the feeling he actually did believe her.
Alex allowed them to back up the Amp. All the files, collected as a snapshot that could be used as evidence, or even cloned and returned to his Amp should they need it back in its original state, with the caveat that they wouldn’t immediately go ahead and do whatever they wanted with it. Eleya’s word was still suspect to him, but she put Carbon to work overseeing the collection and secure storage of it, which alleviated his concerns and seemed to relieve Carbon as well.
She had been acting listless since the Lieutenant, presumably the one she had previously threatened to send to the furthest reaches of Tsla’o space for his behavior, had been marched out of the room. Uncharacteristically quiet as he spoke to Eleya. Neya orbited her for some time until Carbon released her from her duties, the Zeshen’s tasks here done for the time being. She had waited dutifully until Alex released her as well.
Neya took her role seriously, more seriously than Alex took being a Prince. She could have left after Carbon dismissed her and he wouldn’t have given it a second thought. He would have been lying if he said it didn’t feel good to know that her acceptance of him, cautious as it may have been, appeared to be in earnest.
His data was uploaded into something everyone was calling a Codex, which appeared to be a large stone obelisk, about the size of his forearm. A lot of their technology Alex could kind of grok just by looking at it - there are only so many ways to put a screen on a tablet, for instance - but this one was beyond his understanding. Just as soon as the transfer was finished, Carbon picked it up out of the weird pool on the desk that it had been resting in and tucked it into the crook of her arm, carrying it like a football and immediately hustling it away from the Intelligence team.
Free from the Lieutenant, or perhaps more tightly restrained by the presence of the Empress, they did not react to that. Carbon keeping it was part of the deal. They did, however, immediately transition into getting the init file on his Amp fixed so it would not launch the virtual machine to emulate the Mark IV he was supposed to have, or activate the AI.
“So I know this-” Alex gestured to the makeshift surgical suite they were still sitting in. He had situated himself on top of the table, sitting cross-legged while the various teams got to editing a file that was intentionally onerous to edit specifically to keep people from fiddling with it after installation unless they really wanted to. Every time they changed something, even just a single word in the file, he had to approve it. The file was small, straightforward, and in very plain language. He did not question how they had programmers who were familiar enough with Human systems that they hadn’t required a single correction so far. It was slow going, and the discussion had gotten a little philosophical. “Is real because only one system has the throughput and power to present a realistic overwrite of my senses.”
Eleya was sitting in the chair that Zenshen had brought in, her sword resting across her lap, and looked utterly mystified by that statement. “Which system is that?”
“The AI interface.” He twisted his head carefully, pointing at the barely visible marks on his skin running down his neck. The actual near-field nodes were mounted in the vertebra, so the vanishingly thin lines that marked the protective EM dissipation systems were the only outward sign of his mods. “With the right hardware I can use them for some small time stuff, but most of the system will be locked out. If I’ve got a ship with matched encryption pads and an index module, I can directly interface with a navigation AI. Dip down into it.”
Carbon was leaning on the surgical table, the Codex laid out on it before her, hands casually folded over the obelisk. She shivered at the mention of interfacing with an AI. Understandable, given how her one experience with it went.
“And how do you know that you are still not interfaced with that AI?” Eleya at least seemed interested in the subject, though there was a veneer of disgust creeping in.
Alex held up a finger and completed another change approval check.
“The big difference is that the navigation systems only do navigation and general ship awareness. Sensors of all sorts. I suppose I do navigate myself through space still, but it lacks the usual indications of being in a machine. I don’t intuit my velocity in meters per second, I can’t orient to the nearest celestial object. No thrusters, no sublight, no waveride.” He shrugged. Sure would have been nice to have sensors when that asshole tried to stab him to death. “Beyond that, long entanglement sessions with high integration interfaces leads to headaches, vomiting, seizures, and eventually death. I assure you, all my recent headaches have been naturally occurring.”
“Could someone have put you, ah, interfaced you into a different AI?” Eleya leaned in, swirling a hand in the air as she thought the rest of her question out. “One meant to emulate a life, not simply direct a ship about.”
“Ah, I fuckin’ knew you were going ask me that! Every time the interface comes up somebody tries to Roko’s Basilisk me!” He slapped his knees and laughed with glee. He had the answers on deck already and launched into them immediately. “One, no AI has the power necessary to simulate a life with the detail I perceive, and surely not one this weird. Two, even if it did I would still live my life in accordance with my values and morals. If I cannot perceive it to be a simulation, how is it different from not being in a simulation?”
“An interesting quandary.” She didn’t actually seem to care for that answer. It wasn’t particularly concrete, and left everyone around him being computer programs open for interpretation.
“Is it? People like to ask about that possibility like it’s a super deep gotcha or something, but then you ask them how they don’t know they don’t live in a simulation, or how they can tell that they’re not just a script to keep me moving down a specific path, and suddenly they don’t want to talk about it anymore.” He had run into this line of questioning more often than he had expected in the relatively short length of time he’d had an Amp. Twice in the same day when he had stopped in on Mars to see some friends from college. Mostly other people in the Pilot Program that were just trying to be dicks. Alex had stopped taking it seriously. “So, I choose to believe this isn’t a simulation. Reject the assertion right out. Computer, end program. See? Nothing.”
Carbon mostly suppressed a laugh and shook her head, a subtle smile on her face for the first time in a while. “If it were a simulation, telling it to end itself would be a command excluded from you.”
It was good to see Carbon peeking out from the funk she’d been in, her response clearly just teasing him. “Very true, but have you considered: I don’t care. Generally, I am happy with my life. It is perhaps more interesting than I want, but it’s still a good one. I would prefer it to be real, and as I’ve never seen a glitch in the matrix, I have no reason to even consider it being a simulation. That’s another movie reference, it’s a classic, we’ll have to see it when I get access to my media again.” He directed that last comment at Carbon in particular.
Though, if Eleya enquired he wouldn’t be opposed to doing a showing for everybody. Cultural exchange and all that. After he’d screened it with Carbon.
Alex completed another change approval, and this time had to immediately do another one to save all changes. He looked over to the row of workstations. “Hey, is this accurate? Is it done?”
An affirmative came from the Corporal that Carbon had been working with.
“All right, all right.” He turned his attention back to the surgeon. “Pull the PINs, I’m done being on this table.”
They came loose one by one, reversing the order from the second time that they had been run. Deno rushed back into the sterile field to mind the narrow wounds, dabbing blood from each insertion off the back of his head and giving them a little spritz of that numbing agent.
While that was going on he rebooted the Amp. The power cycle took maybe two seconds, which was absurdly fast compared to his old Mark III. What the hell had they done to make the Mark IV so quick? He cleared the warnings one by one, ensuring that the changes made were actually the ones he knew about, and flipped his translator back on just in time for Eleya to start talking.
“We will retire to my conference room and discuss our plan of action regarding this.” Eleya gestured at the Codex. “I have a few ideas, and I am sure the Admiral will have some input as well as he is more familiar with Electronic Warfare’s exact capabilities.”
Alex squashed a groan. Talk about this right now? Meet with an Admiral? All he wanted to do was eat an entire box of donuts at his very own pity party, then sleep for a day or two. He would get Carbon whatever she wanted too, because she wasn’t taking this well either. Then they could get down to business.
Actually, you know what? After today he had earned it. He rolled his eyes, slumped his shoulders, and tossed his arms up. Exuded raw petulant annoyance. “Oh, come on.”
Eleya’s head turned slowly, regarding him with a stare that would have been withering if he wasn’t already completely fucking done. “This must be decided now, young Prince. We cannot delay considerations when the Oh En Eye no doubt expects its actual upload when we return you for the next meeting regarding the artifact. What they receive, or do not receive, cannot be an accident.”
He sighed and crossed his arms and relented. She had a point, and it was a good one. That was probably when ONI would expect an upload, and if he didn’t appear to toss a bunch of data up to their servers like he didn’t know what was going on... At best they’d think the hardware was bad and would want him to come in for a fix. Worst case, they’d figure that the surveillance suite had been detected. Presumably there would be a penalty for this that he would have to pay. Being a spy sucked. He wasn’t even actually a spy and he hated it. Alex unfolded his legs and slid off the surgical table. “Fine, let’s go. Lead the way.”
When Eleya said they would retire to her conference room, it was actually just a conference room in a workshop down the hall. The main room smelled sort of greasy, and sure enough, there was a decades-old Human made industrial printer sitting silent in the corner. Closer to the door that particular stink gave way to the ozone of cloaked armor, the indistinct forms of her guard flanking the entrance.
Eleya handed her sword off to one of them as the door opened. The conference room had been hastily converted into a monitoring station, a row of tablets set up that were still showing what was going on in the surgical suite, several of the workstations mirrored on the holo display at the far end of the table. She had clearly been watching the goings on over there for some time, which did explain how she arrived so fast when things started to go off the rails. A curt gesture left the three of them alone in the workshop.
Eleya went down the row of tablets and shut them off one by one, then cleared the holo before sitting down at the head of the table, tapping through a control panel built into the surface. A field popped on and she spoke. “Room is secure, Obsidian protocols.”
Carbon grunted in acknowledgement , setting the obelisk onto the table. She placed it into a rectangle demarcated on the surface, glossy white and lit from within, standing in stark contrast to the plain gray metal the rest of the table was made of. The Codex once again sank partway into the tabletop as Carbon picked up one of the screens and sank into a chair with nearly the same level of annoyance that Alex had just displayed.
“What’s ‘obsidian’ mean in this instance?” He asked, sitting beside Carbon. He had a pretty good idea it had to do with security, given... everything.
“One of the higher levels of secrecy. What is spoken within Obsidian should stay within that, or higher.” Eleya studied him as she reached for one of the tablets as well. “Wireless connections are disrupted by the field, there is a small envelope where the network in the table will function for distribution of materials.”
Alex almost questioned why they would have that built into a workshop, but then recalled that this was the xenotechnology labs. They obviously didn’t want anything getting out of here until it had somebody’s seal of approval. “Alright, so let’s get down to business. What are our options for this?” He said, swirling a finger in the air, pointed directly at his head.
Eleya shifted into gear immediately. “First, retain a copy. This is done. We now have a package of data that indicates the Confederation was spying on us in violation of our treaties, using a civilian asset with intentionally compromised, implanted hardware. It is my understanding that those in your field - the scoutship Pilots - they are all given their implants at the end of their service?”
“Correct, we retain it unless expelled from the program. Trained, experienced pilots with pre-existing hardware are a staple of frontier colonies and their supply lines.” The Civilian Pilot Program fed pilots to the frontier, and the frontier gave a need to explore more space right back, the two things in a symbiotic relationship. Everyone else just ended up working for the Navy.
“So it would be reasonable to suggest that all scoutship pilots may have likewise been compromised?” She leaned in, eyebrow lifted in curiosity.
“No, not really. I only have the microphone network because of the immersion translator, which is what allowed the echolocation mapping to work. Audio from my ears shouldn’t be able to produce such fine details.” Well, that portion of it wouldn’t work, at least. “It’d be more limited, but there could still be some data collection going on. The III and IV aren’t supposed to be able to skim audio or video data from the body interface layer - and everything we’ve seen so far has been software.”
That got him wondering, turning his visible interface back on for a moment. The window that popped up was translucent - every interaction with the Amp was supposed to feel obviously synthetic - and he dug around in the properties to find out exactly which version of the Amp Mark IV they had given him. The virtual machine had said it was a Revision B, with a Hardware Interface Layer version 32.5.1, which was in line with the 32.5 his Mark III had used.
The thing he had in his head was denoted simply as Aurora, which wasn’t at all what he wanted to see. Maybe, you know, Amp Mark V or VI, which he was sure didn’t exist yet, would have been all right. This didn’t even say it was an Amp. No revision data listed, either because it hadn’t been iterated or they didn’t bother to update it. Curiously the Hardware Interface Layer was sitting at version 29.8, so it must have been related at least. Maybe.
“So such spying would be possible? I only ask because having a host of similarly afflicted Humans would make this much more difficult for the Confederation to hide under a wine cask.” She said, unaware that he had been fiddling around with his implants.
“Hey, uh-” He cleared his throat, voice awfully close to cracking. Alex closed the properties window and glanced up at Eleya. “Not to get off topic here but do you have a copy of the scan of my hardware? I gotta see something.”
“I do not have it, but I can have it released to us.” She turned her attention to the computer integrated with the holo display, tapping away at it. “Should be coming through in a moment.”
It was nice to have that sort of importance to swing around. “Thanks. This thing doesn’t have a designation I’m familiar with and... I don’t know what’s up with that.”
The console buzzed, and a few more taps later there was the top half of his body on the holographic display, translucent save for the prodigious amount of implants he now sported. Even from two meters away, the Amp - the not-Amp - was wrong. “The hell?”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Carbon set her tablet flat on the table and brought the scan up, sliding it over to him without a word.
Pinch and zoom worked just like he expected it to, which was nice. “So uh...” He spun the scan around slowly, inspecting the hardware he had been toting around inside his skull.
“Is it not the right thing?” Carbon asked him, leaning over to rest a hand on his arm.
“No, it’s huge. The Amp I had, the Mark III went to like, here.” Alex drew a line around the top of his head with a finger, sliding it down behind his ear and along the base of his skull. “This one, it looks like they took an Amp and extended it.”
He angled the tablet so that Carbon could see what he was pointing at. The one in the scan wrapped nearly all the way around the inside of his skull, long ‘wings’ extending forward past his temples and separated by a space no wider than the bridge of his nose. The original Amp had stopped before the brain stem as well, but the Aurora had a U shaped protrusion downward that partially encircled it.
“What is it?” Eleya enquired, annoyed at being left out after having gotten the data.
“Ok, so the III and the IV are basically the same, just with more extendability so it can have things like the immersion translator linked into it. They’re almost the exact same size, the IV is a couple of grams heavier. This is nearly twice as large...” He rolled his head side to side, then back and forth, brow furrowed as it didn’t feel weird at all even when he was thinking about it. “But similar weight? Or the balance is just excellent. I can’t tell that it’s there.”
Being brought up to speed at least eased her tone. “And what does that mean?”
“I got a free upgrade, I guess.” All that extra hardware did explain how it had the oomph to run a virtualized Amp and do data collection at the same time. He dug around zooming in to the fine fibers that actually interfaced with his brain. “All the connections look the same as my first implant, save for the pipeline for the translator. So the only new method of data gathering likely came through that... and the rest of this thing.”
That got a grunt of recognition out of Carbon, but Eleya had more to say. “Free? Consider the price you have been made to pay for it.”
“All right. A very expensive upgrade, that is now mine alone.” He offered the tablet back to Carbon, who took it and started inspecting the hardware closer than he had. “I am under the impression that you’ve got some experts in Human electronics here. Maybe they could take a closer look to find out exactly what all is in this thing.”
“A lot of processors.” Carbon muttered under her breath, looking his way for a moment.
“I will, though I suspect my dearest niece has discovered what they will find already.” Eleya gave a nod to Carbon as she spoke, blue eyes switching between the two of them sitting across the table from her.
“I may have, but the way they are put to use is open to supposition.” She closed the file and sat back up. “A more familiar team would be able to tell us the exact intentions of the design.”
“So yeah. Have a more familiar team check it out.” He echoed Carbon’s words, nodding in agreement. “I can tell them a little bit about the hardware I expected to have, but not much in the way of exact details.”
Eleya had gone back to typing on the desk. “I will note that as well.”
Alex leaned back in his chair and mentally checked out while he could hear Eleya typing. The soft pat-pat-pat of fingertips on the interface. It was strangely familiar, just like any Human he had heard typing, though occasionally punctuated by a click of a claw at just the right angle to make contact.
He fired up the ARGUS again and cleared his throat, the overlay springing to life as he tested it out a little bit. He glanced over at Eleya, a surprisingly lean amount of information available to him. Full name as Tashen had said it, her role as Empress of the Tsla’o Empire was listed. Relatives listed had her deceased husband, unnamed brother, niece Carbon Sorenson, and nephew by marriage Alex Sorenson. The box that had popped up with this information had a little arrow that indicated there was more. Maybe another time.
He didn’t look toward Carbon, didn’t want to see something that he was sure would make him furious.
"I wish this program hadn’t been used in such an invasive way." The overlay refreshed again, apparently smart enough to use only his voice for mapping. There must have been an AI behind the scenes. Maybe a class 4, should have the power to be able to suss out complex math and file away new pertinent information on the fly, using only passively collected data. "Because this is actually kind of cool."
“Really.” Carbon looked over at him, dark lips pulled thin, somewhat less than enthusiastic about that description. She had put away the schematics of his Aurora and was checking out the files they had saved to the Codex.
“What does this mean, cool?” Eleya looked up from her console and leaned on the table towards Alex. She was taking a cue from Carbon and already disapproving of what he had said, the hint of a scowl on her brow. “It is not to be taken literally? Yes?”
“It’s slang, in this case it just means that something is great.” He held up his hands defensively as he shut it off for the time being. Really should have seen that coming. “Let me rephrase that. I can see how this would be very useful in some situations. Like, off the top of my head, mine.”
That got a gruff noise from Carbon but Eleya seemed intrigued. She rested her chin on an open palm, eyebrow cocked. “Do not leave me wondering, dear nephew.”
“This thing seems to absorb names, birthdates, political affiliations, relationships... That I’ve seen so far. I’m pretty good at remembering stuff like that when I meet someone one-on-one. But you roll twenty or thirty people past me at one dinner and I’ll be lucky to keep their names straight. Their weird, alien names.” His legs being in agony at the state dinner had not helped, but he had other past experience with normal Human names that indicated it wasn’t actually an alien name problem.
“You performed better than you give yourself credit for, nephew.” Despite her interest, the Empress was sounding a little curt in her compliment.
“Okay, fine, you can think that. I do not feel the same way. I assure you at least half of the people I’ve met have had their name forgotten.” He didn’t particularly like admitting that. He’d always had an easier time with faces, which did seem to extend to the Tsla’o. “That is really what makes it useful. Everything it has accumulated just spills out into my vision, as needed.”
“That would be beneficial.” Eleya was placated by his explanation. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared through the wall, lost in thought.
“Exactly. It would be good if maybe it wasn’t set up to run all the time without the user knowing.” That was the real reason he was so uneasy about looking at Carbon with the system on. If it had been running as consistently as the timestamped files suggested, then it had collected every bit of information they had spoken out loud, including some rather intimate things. “Just, you know, as a suggestion.”
Eleya nodded sagely. “There are times when it would be best to leave no traces.”
Alex was pretty sure she was agreeing with him there, if not for the same reason. “Yeah, little bit of personal privacy never hurt.”
Carbon slammed the tablet down onto the table and stood with a snarl, her chair skittering away. “I- I require-” She didn’t finish the thought, whatever she had meant to say ending in a guttural growl. Carbon stalked out the door, crackling through the security field, jaw clenched in barely contained rage. The door slid closed, muffling the rather distinct sound of a table being flipped over.
He’d let her get that energy out for a minute.
“Curious.” Eleya reached for the tablet, moving an empty tea cup out of the way before she started to review what had set Carbon off. “I usually have to go out of my way to provoke that sort of reaction.”
“Well, maybe don’t provoke that sort of reaction. Remember what I was talking about last night? Your relationship is improving so don’t fuck it up?” He was sure her translator wouldn’t get the swearing but Carbon always seemed to pick up what he was talking about despite the unreasonable flexibility of the word.
Something in the workroom slammed into the wall of storage lockers.
“You will note I did nothing this time. The fault lies entirely with the Confed- What...” She tapped the screen a few times, changing the settings around as she arched an eyebrow at the tablet, perplexed by what she was looking at. “What is a chicken?”
“It’s a domesticated bird mostly used for food.” Last time they had chicken with his Amp on was at dinner with his parents. She had really enjoyed that positive family time, though, so he could dig how seeing it packaged for upload would be upsetting. Hadn’t that been uploaded and cleared already? “Where did you hear that?”
“The audio is transcribed and I am translating it. Why is it important that the chicken is a male? Oh. Oh. I see, it is slang as well.” Confusion turned to amusement, a toothy grin on her muzzle as she glanced at him over the top of the tablet. “Aha, that is very educational.”
“Educational?” Alex blushed as he understood exactly what conversation she was watching, and lunged over the conference table to snatch the tablet out of her hands. The screen was mostly dark, the discussion about slang terms and the body parts related to them having taken place under a blanket, the confined space and soft surfaces preventing the sonar system from getting good readings. There was still the occasional flash of identifiable body parts, and it picked up the audio just fine. It even transcribed the other sounds they had been making. He cleared his throat. “Like I said, more privacy.”
Eleya gave him an unreasonably smug grin, utterly devilish, and tsked at him. “There is nothing to be ashamed of, dearest nephew. I had hoped you would be able to fully experience all aspects of your relationship, and you seem to be doing so with some aplomb. Such confidence is-”
The door shushed open partway through Eleya’s statement, Carbon returning. She was still roiling, but had cooled down significantly. “It is not your business what he does.” She pulled her chair back to the table and took her place beside Alex again and picked up another tablet.
“Desirable.” Eleya did not miss a beat. “You should know well by now that everything is my business, and I will compliment the young prince as I see fit.”
Carbon stared daggers at her but gave no other reply.
Alex leaned back as far as he could go, even tipping the chair back on two legs, shaking his head no. His eyebrows lifted so high they threatened to leave his face entirely as he mouthed ‘what the hell are you doing?’ at her. Zero chance she could lip-read English, but the expression should carry it.
“But as it does upset you, I shall abstain from such comments in the future.” Eleya stood and stretched, retrieving a tea pot from an alcove in the wall along with a pair of plain cups. The Empress set them out and poured the two of them tea, then refilled her own.
Alex got that there was more than just getting beverages going on there, which was unexpected. He didn’t know what exactly that gesture meant, but the fact it happened immediately after Eleya yielded that little concession meant that it had to be one of those court things.
“So.” He announced that too loud, eager to move on to something a little less intimate and invasive. Though at this point, everything was bound to be invasive. “We’ve retained our copy of the data. I think the best idea is to just blow away everything my Amp has harvested and let me start from scratch with it. They’ll want to ‘fix’ it, yes, but I can put that off for a long while. I bet I can string them along until after we’re done with the artifact.”
“No. No, that will not do.” Eleya sipped her tea, face devoid of emotion as her eyes turned to Alex.
It sure as hell seemed like the thing to do, to him. “Why not?”
She pondered that, watching him through the steam from her cup. “String them along, that means... To lead someone astray? As though you fly them like a kite?”
He had never considered it to be a kite metaphor, but... “Yeah, misleading them deliberately over time. I suppose like a kite that you’re lying to.”
Eleya’s bright blue eyes shifted away from him, a little smirk on her face. She got a chuckle out of that too, and didn’t even try to hide it. “That is well outside of your skillset, and as I said, it will not do. They must not know they have been discovered, so you will not interfere with the upload.”
“Excuse me? This is at least a third private stuff between me and your niece!” That brought him back to his earlier point: nobody could have that. Probably didn’t have the right weight, though. “I’m sure there’s a bunch of state secrets in there, too. Who knows what everyone in earshot was talking about at the dinner. Those are your state secrets!”
“I am aware there may be things I do not want released, though I am well aware of the discussions we have had - we have not spoken of anything truly secret until now.” She paused to drink her tea, waving her free hand as though to call him down. “There are expectations to be met and you must meet them, even if they are undesirable. To that end-”
“No. Hell no, I’m not letting all of this get uploaded to... who the fuck knows where.” He looked to Carbon, expecting backup and not getting any. She had her nose buried in the tablet still, reviewing something else that he didn’t immediately recognize, the transcription was in Tsla. The intensity on which she was focused made it pretty clear that she didn’t want to be involved in any of what was going on, including his argument with Eleya. “It’s not right. You can’t have our life and neither can they.”
“You really must let me finish my statements, young Prince. When we first acquired your hardware scans I set our xenotechnology group upon it. Now that we have a greater understanding of what it does, I turn our intelligence community loose. They are different ports in the same city, do you understand? One to research and adapt it for us, now the other to research and adapt us to it.” Eleya sipped her tea, again regarding him with a cool gaze. “We have long expected some sort of intrusion, and guarded against it in many ways. We have also prepared for the day where we would desire to intrude in return.”
“Great, and?” It wasn’t a big shock that they had been prepared to spy on the Confederacy, but it was somewhat surprising that the Confed hadn’t. Which was a bit of a shock. Yesterday he’d have balked at the very idea they were spying on their lone allies among the stars, which really did make him an excellent platform for the job.
“And they will do everything they can to make our loss into a gain. This will be distasteful to you... To you both.” She nodded to her niece, who had folded her ears as tight to her head as she could, staring into the tablet in her hands more than actually reading it. “It is something that must be done. They will know it has been compromised if an upload is not completed next time you have access to a public connection.”
That was still objectionable. “No, fuck them. They can know that we made their game and they can go to hell.”
“They can not and will not, Alex. You do not consider any of the consequences.” There was a remarkable amount of force in her words, but no anger. She actually wanted him to agree with her, not to simply acquiesce. “As this violates your privacy, it also violates our treaties. Other Imperials would have told you that amounts to an act of war. I am more understanding of the desire to know what is hidden. Beyond that, I am sure you are aware that we are in no position to get into a shooting war with the Humans right now.”
Being excluded from his race rubbed him the wrong way, but he was distracted by the bigger picture he hadn’t seen until now. They had the larger, more technologically advanced carrier... But Battle Group 1 was in Sol, Group 2 in Proxima, Group 3 in Epsilon Eridani. Two more beyond that could be recalled inside of a day. He didn’t know how it would shake out, but he doubted the Sword was a match for that many ships. That didn’t even take into account the damage Human assets in Tsla’o space could do, or simply allow to come to pass. “Obviously not, that sort of fight would be a disaster.”
“It warms me to know you understand that. I will not oversee the subjugation or extermination of my people, not after the hardship they continue to endure.” Eleya paused and mulled her words over. “I ask that you give of yourself so that we have the opportunity to respond in kind. So that we might find who brought this upon us and reverse their fortunes.”
Revenge did still sound very sweet, good enough to get him on the hook. “Fine. What’s the plan?”
“As I said, reprisal has been a possibility for some time. Admiral Olan will have more specific details when he arrives, but we have been developing an intelligent counterintelligence injection specifically to operate on Human-made systems. This has presented us with a perfect opportunity to put it to use.”
Carbon’s head snapped up at that. “What do you mean, intelligent?”
“Smart enough to hide and avoid detection on its own.” Eleya did not seem as bothered by this. “Restrained enough to prevent deviation from the mission assigned.”
“That sounds like you have been developing an artificial intelligence.” Carbon clearly was bothered by this, eyes narrowed as she set the tablet down and crossed her arms over it.
“We have. And before you ask, it goes beyond the synthetic intelligence regulations. Much care has been taken to ensure we do not achieve true thought, that no life is created. These are machines, and they will never grow beyond that.” Eleya was once again emphatic about this, eyes hard and leaning in to talk to her niece. “Another place we have lacked parity with Humans, but this one is a work entirely our own.”
Carbon again did not respond, grumbling to herself as she picked the tablet back up.
“Ok, so... What does it do?” This seemed very pertinent, given that it was an AI that they wanted to turn loose on ONI.
Eleya was perplexed by that question. Counterintelligence was more familiar territory to her, it seemed. “It infiltrates computer systems, skims information from where it has been, reports back to us, and waits for further commands.”
“That works on Human computers? There’s no like, hardware compatibility issues?” He’d seen Independence Day a couple of times, and that virus upload scene had always bothered him.
“I said it was specifically for Human-made systems. It is built entirely with a Human programming language. If the Oh En Eye catches it and unravels it, they will find code that could have come from any corner of their Empire.” Eleya was annoyed by his continuing questions, but proud of that achievement. “We will leave no obvious trace.”
“And once it’s done-” The fact they had prepared for this, and apparently had it ready to go right now bothered him. He had intended to sit on this, think about, not have to agree to cram a warhead in his brain and let the ONI vacuum it up right this instant. The ability for things to go wrong suddenly felt very real. “Look, I’m hesitant about this. Retribution, revenge... These sound great. What I want is justice, but I don’t know if I can get that. At the same time, I don’t want people unrelated to this to come to harm.”
“This intrusion is, initially, a phantom. Meant to carry out the task of fact-finding, never being seen.” She sighed and leaned back in her chair, and the look in her eye said she understood what he meant. “I give you my word, that is all it will be allowed to do without your permission.”