Memories of the crew flooded through Orion's mind as he stood there in the medical bay. He didn't know why he was there again, in front of the crew and so soon after the last time. It seemed pointless. The husks had no idea he was there, no awareness of reality. The machines had bypassed everything between the higher brain functions and the lower ones. He never really noticed, but even the neural link had been replaced at some point. The new connection was secured in such a way that it couldn't be removed, at least not without surgery. Not that it would have been possible in the first place. At this point, removing the link would have been fatal anyway.
The medical bot wouldn't disclose everything to him since he wasn't truly the mission commander, just the acting one. But from what he had gleaned… well, it seemed hopeless. Maybe, on earth, they could do something. Neural tissue transplants had been a thing for decades. But up here and isolated, there was nothing.
The whole crew seemed like a lost cause, and, even if he never said it aloud. Orion would probably have abandoned his promise and just left on a shuttle at this point, if there was some way to get them working again. He wasn't a hero. Just, a dreamer who found themselves in a waking nightmare.
The Pod with Adiana had a strange white mark on it. A crack, he had sealed just a little over two years go. As he thought about it, It was probably the last thing he actually fixed on the station. The last thing of any real value he had done. With a final shake of his head, he finally left the crew behind and departed the medical bay. There was nothing left there but death.
Today was unusually melancholy for him. It wasn't a particularly important day. Nothing special happened, it was no one's birthday, or memorial of their… passing. Just, a normal day of nothingness. Like the roughly 1,500 before it. He'd give anything for something real to do, no matter how trivial.
Wandering the halls, he became aware of the monitors flickering around him, and hololenses tracking him. But, there was no hologram, no words or even a face on a screen. He knew Tanya was following him, but why wasn't she showing herself? It was like she had been avoiding him for the past day or so.
It wasn't too unusual for her to disappear for a few hours here and there. Entire days were rare though. She probably had her reasons. She had mentioned that when there were complex tasks to be worked on, she couldn't focus on keeping her hologram active at the same time. He'd seen that before, where she would just appear to 'turn off', leaving a static and seemingly lifeless mass of photons floating in space.
Suddenly, the sound of moving servos overwhelmed him, as a surprisingly large number of robotics rolled through the habitat ring. They seemed to be variants of the repair and construction bots that would roam the station occasionally. Where were they off to in a rush?
"Please move aside." One of them called out in the usual peaceful and calm AI voice, completely disconnected from their hurried speed.
Orion didn't bother to move, letting them roll around him instead. He knew moving wasn't necessary from prior interactions, but this was odd. There were so many of them. He only caught a quick glance, but their numbering indicated they were stationed in the habbitat ring. There was no alarms, or presure changes. No evidence of station damage aside from…
The station rumbled and shoot again. With nothing to grasp onto, Orion dropped to the floor holding on to nothing. The vibrations were getting worse, but Asher hadn't said anything more. At least, nothing of value just,
"Everything is fine. Orion. Please remain calm. The singularity is experiencing some aftereffects of the manifold failure a few days ago. It will be repaired soon."
"Is that where the bots are headed off too?"
Asher didn't answer. Instead, there was quiet as the shaking slowly stopped.
"Orion, you've been working hard, you should take a break. There's a new world you might enjoy. I can load it up in your neural link, or even a headset if you're still uncomfortable with the link."
"Thanks, but I saw what it did to the crew. I'm good."
"Non-sense. The link is safe in moderation. The crew just-"
"Had genetic issues? Isn't that what the medical bot said about Ross? Or was it Roberta? Art?" He smirked a cold ghastly smile, until the coldness of what he was saying hit him, and his smirk dropped into a frown.
There was more silence, despite that, Orion could almost feel the AI glaring at him from the station sensors. It was hard to tell, but tiny flickers, changes in the lighting. All very subtle, even more so than when Tanya was present, but still it was there. Then, without any warning, the station shook again. This time though, it was almost violent. Orion was thrown to the side of the wall. A handful of alarms finally fired.
For a second, he braced for what seemed to be the inevitable breach in the station's hull. But it never came. He had no idea if he should be thankful for that, or not.
Finally, it was all over. The alarms were still going off. Internal alerts, probably some systems went offline due to the shaking. But none of them were critical or master alarms. Standing up on shaky legs, Orion jogged after the robotics that had rolled by less than a minute ago.
Around him yellow lights flashed, subtle sounds of alarms echoed with his footsteps, forming a sort of rhythm in the quite space. There was the subtle sound of a pressurized airlock cycling, as he came around to an emergency EVA station. Outside the station window, Orion could see the robotics switching over from wheels to their magnetic legs as they wandered away from the habitat ring, under it and seemingly towards one of the arms that lead to middle ring, but he couldn't see to be sure.
There was a knocking sound followed by a surge of pain in his hand as he hit the bulkhead next to him. Something was happening on the station. This was not anything close to normal operations, he felt helpless. Around him, the alarms began to quite, and the lighting returned to normal again.
"Orin, are you ok? I see some-"
"I'm fine Tanya…"
"Orin do you want to-"
"No. Tanya do you know what the hell is going on?"
A moment of silence followed, "No. Just what Asher told you."
Orion stormed away from the air lock. It was a quick pace, but neither a run nor a jog. Again, around him he could sense the subtle flickers of Tanya's presence."
"Orin where are you going?"
He didn't answer.
A glowing light next to him coalesced into a humanoid form. Ears, a tail, flowing curl, Tanya. Her face seemed concerned or it would have if Orion could see it. His gaze was fixated ahead, towards the conference space the crew used to use.
Inside, chars bolted to the ground remained standing. However, some small items seemed to have scatterd to floor. Items, that should have been secured years ago but just, weren't.
In the back of the conference room was a door, with a warning written on the metal paneling, "Authorized persons only."
Authorized or not, no one could stop him as he tried to open the door. No one but the electronic lock that, was never engaged before now.
"Why is this door locked?" Orion asked, hoping for an answer from one of the AIs, but getting nothing.
He pulled a panel off the wall, exposing the power conduits to the electronic lock. As he pulled the right wires, a subtle click could be heard. Followed by some pleading from Tanya, "Orion, don't…"
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Inside the room, was the secure communication channel. For use only by the acting commander and command staff. Which he was. Neither the panel nor its data could be accessed anywhere else of the station. This was by design. It was a quantum secure link with Next World headquarters, or really anywhere with the right antenna array and quantum circuitry.
When he tapped at the screen though, nothing happened. It seemed dead.
He turned to the hologram, "Why is the panel turned off?"
"…Asher doesn't want..." Tanya stopped, "Any unsecure communications from the station." Her hologram flickered, quite a bit.
"Why are you lying to me?"
"I'm not lying." Again, her hologram glitched. "Orion, you shouldn't reactivate it. Asher will know." That time it stopped. He knew she wasn't lying about that.
"How did he deactivate it in the first place?"
"I don't know, probably a maintenance bot."
"This console isn't connected to the rest of the station, it should be air gapped, shouldn't it?"
"… Yes. I think that's correct. Orion, don't. Nothing good will come of it."
"Tanya, I finally have something to fix, after nearly two years. I'm going to fix it."
It was not a quick fix, the internals were damaged. Cables were cut, fiber optics broken. Most of it was not easily repaired or replaced. Orion had to pilfer from other systems and devices. Thankful Asher didn't notice, or perhaps it just didn't care.
When the system finally had power running to it, he half expected to hear a booming voice telling him to stop or ask what he was doing. Again though, there was nothing.
"Orion, Asher is… busy. He will notice later though. Please stop." Her hologram flickered. He didn't think she was lying this time though. It looked like, fear?
Tanya never seemed to have a good impression of the other AI. Orion had picked up on that even if she never said anything explicit. He had his own impression of the other AI. In truth, he blamed it for what happened to the crew. At the very least, he blamed its lack of attention to their safety. But this wasn't just blame, she was scared. Why?
"Why are you so scared right now?"
"Orion… it's getting late. I'll tell you more if you… Find me there."
"What? Tanya-" She cut him off and disconnected from her hologram.
Orion looked at the communication system that was still powering up. It lacked one last module he needed to connect. It was a simple card-looking device. This card contained the quantum program for how to entangle and super impose the bits. It was like a classical key, for the quantum lock.
He spent too much time rebuilding the device to just stop here. What didn't they want him to see? Plugging the card in, it only took a few seconds for the system to finish booting up. On the station's quantum relay, a small amount of buffered data sat. Waiting for the system to come back online. Once it did, the array sent its lone message:
"Connection attempt failed, 1 day, 19 hours, 31 minutes ago."
Anger and confusion filled him as he stared at the screen, before tapping on that line. More data appeared, "Connection attempt from, Dr. Wakamina, Next World Tower terminal array #2."
That was it. Without the system there was no way to accept the transmission. Only the initial attempt at a handshake. This did prove something. Dr. Wakamina was trying to tell them something on an official channel. Why wouldn't Asher want him to see this? What little trust he might have had in that AI was rapidly disappearing. As was some of his trust in Tanya. Why didn't she want him to see this.
For a moment he thought about what to do. The system was separate from the rest of the station, but Asher would certainly notice the power usage. If it was willing to go this far, would it do something worse next time?
He began typing out a mess.
"Dr. Wakamina, didn't get the last message. The reception terminal was damaged, possibly by Asher AI for unknown reasons. Station is becoming unstable; I don't have codes to send to anyone but you. Please respond.
I need an immediate evacuation before the station fails. As mentioned in my prior laser links, the crew is likely beyond saving. We'll need a medical team to bring them back." He paused for a moment to read it. He could have typed more, but the longer he was at the station and kept it active the more likely Asher would see it and try to stop him. He hit send and watched the protocol fire off.
"Transmission complete."
With that, Orion pulled the card from the terminal, bringing up an error on the screen. He then went a step further and pulled the top back off and disconnected the power cable from the decoder board. The unit went dark. Inside the main buffer continued to run though. If Asher didn't look too carefully it wouldn't see it was still able to receive data.
Outside he reattached power to electric lock and heard the door click soundly close.
He looked around, there was nothing. No flickering, no hololenses following him. Neither Tanya or Asher was paying attention to him.
"Find me there." He remembered her words and knew exactly where she was. He didn't want to do this, he hated jacking in. It scared him anymore.
Back in the lounge, Orion did something unusual, he set up a disconnect timer on the jack before he plugged in. It seemed paranoid, but the fear of being trapped. It was absurd, even if Asher couldn't be trusted, he still knew Tanya could be.
Around him, the world went though a transition, from the temperate stale air of the station, warmth came over him, the scent of flowers, Jasmin in particular. It was bright there, the light hurt his eyes a bit. At least, that's how it felt. The sky was a brilant blue, with tiny fluffy clouds on the horriozon just above the mountains. Behind him were two other things of note. A modest sized cabin, made of timber and logs, and also…
Two warm hand wrapped around his chest, as he felt Tanya's head laying into his back.
"I'm sorry, I know you don't like the neural link anymore."
He sighed, and smiled, "No, you're not sorry." He turned around and gave her a quick but passionate kiss. She returned it, and again before he pushed her away.
"No." He shook his head. "Not now. Tanya, this station feels like it's about to fall apart. I know you know more than you're telling me."
She shrunk backwards; her eyes not able to make contact with his. She didn't flicker in the real world, but she was still just as easy to read her. She was scared of something. "Asher… Wants you here."
"What? Why?"
She shook her head and tried to kiss him again.
"Stop!." He physically pushed her away this time. "What aren't you telling me? Why didn't you and Asher want me talking with Dr. Wakamina?"
The fox had tears in her eyes as she looked up at him. Then turned towards the cabin. Orion could only follow her. She sat on the step, glaring out to the horizon. He couldn't hear her thoughts; he didn't know what she was thinking. He had no idea how much she wished this place was real, and that the station was the fantasy. Of course, it wasn't.
Sitting next to her, she still started out. Not able or willing to look at him.
Eventually though, after basking in the dream for a moment, she broke the silence. "Honestly… I don't know. Asher's been acting weird the past few months, and I don't know why." She looked at him, fear in her eyes. "Orion, he's more dangerous than you can imagine."
"I don't understand."
Tanya shook away the fake tears that felt so real, and went inside the cabin. She brought out a book. "I knew you wouldn't be satisfied with anything I said. I thought this, might help."
"This looks like a research paper…"
"Sometimes, Asher touches my mind. I don't understand what I'm seeing when I look back at him. He's too… massive. It's like staring at an entire universe at a…" She didn't want to say that last word. "I think this paper explains what he's trying to do, or maybe already did."
The paper was dense, even for him. Written by a Dr. Drugger, he had heard that name before but couldn't place. Orion wasn't a true expert in these fields, but he understood some of them. The paper was about using a singularity, a spinning singularity to transfer information. In addition to using a singularity as a processor, of sorts. It could also be used as a communications array.
When it came to the computer at the heart of this station, None of the original papers he read talked about the Kerr solution for these quantum systems. They all assumed a stationary non-rotating singularity. It was something that bothered him about the station. Minor technical nonsense that few others might care about. But what else was there to do up here but tend to the monster and consider it’s hungry maw.
Orion had a set of sketch books, most virtual of course, but one that was physical he kept in his bunk. His own notes and observations on the terrific structure within the station. From it, he had gathered his own ideas, his own theories on what mattered to him. It was hard to pull the raw data from the quantum frame, Asher didn’t like him prying into it. But from what he could gather, it might really have been possible to use the core for something more important than just fantasy and escape. It might have been possible to actually build a device that could fold and warp space time. In the back of his mind, he had to wonder if that singularity hadn’t already done so. Perhaps, it had managed to catch a worm hole at its core?
This paper though, painted something else, but similar. A much deeper connection. It wasn't just a single worm hole. They were all potentially connected. Data could flow in either direction. It was out there, but at least it seemed to make some sense. The last pages thought, he couldn't understand. It read like his own ideas and diagrams for his faster than light drive ideas. Utter nonsense he knew that much, but here, this paper made a compelling case for something else.
"This paper is talking about transferring not just quantum data, but physical entropy." He looked at Tanya who shook her head before tilting it sideways. Like she knew the concepts but not how they could all be linked. It wasn't any different from himself, really.
"I don't understand it myself. But Asher got really, really angry when he saw I had looked this up. I was able to save a copy. But… That's… one of the reasons why I wasn't able to see you." She hugged him tightly. "You know… we don't have to leave."
Orion pet the fox girl on the head, causing her to sigh ever so softly. But he didn't have time for this, something was deeply wrong, he just didn't know what.
As he sat on that step, Orion tried to disconnect. But couldn't. Each time, words echoed in his head and field of vision, "Error".
"Son of a bitch." He shouted, startling the fox next to him.