Shaking her head to clear it, she pulled out her armored work boots and gently placed the box at the bottom of bag in there place. She got up and after washing her face, she picked up one of Rosa boxes.
Opening it she found six class 5 medical grade nanite injectors. Four boxes in all contained the precious nanites. Enough for two years of treatment. She could lower the dose to stretch it out but that was risky. A lower dose meant her illness would progress, though slower. After a certain point even a full dose would not halt her end.
Ellie shook her head, that was not even considering the fact UEN made the doses to degrade after three to four years, just another way for people to be dependent on the United Earth Nations.
Picking up the second to last box, Ellie opened it. She found a Tesenki military grade, high density, solid state, memory cube. Only 1 inch by 1 inch it could survive a concentrated electromagnetic pulse that would destroy every normal storage device in its path. The small cube could hold 2 Petabytes of information. 2,000 Terabytes. Ellie eyed the device in curiosity wondering what Rosa could have possible wanted to send her that need that much data storage. Connecting it to her commpad she went through the security measures until a letter displayed.
My Dearest Ellie
I love you with all my heart. I am devastated that this has happened to such a bright, lovely woman. Ellie you will need a companion in your new future and so enclosed in this data cube are all the programming you will need to develop a sentient AI. Take care of each other and know I will always love you.
Rosa
Ellie was crying after the first words. At the end she was shocked. Sentient AI programming was heavily restricted. The only commonly allowed AI programs had encoded limits to intelligence and self eased if they ever reached beyond that point.
Rosa had just given her a priceless gift and an enormous responsibility. The responsibility to keep the data safe and the responsibility to help the new person grow and learn, to develop. Sentient AIs and even hobbled AIs grew like a child; you could not dump all the necessary data in without the new AI being destroyed. You needed to slowly feed the data in, allowing the AI to understand and internalize the data before adding in more. Ellie wiped her tears away and went into the bathroom again to clean her face.
She picked up the last package with some reluctance only to find a light weight ship suit, she laughed in relief, though was puzzled why Rosa would give her such a simple thing. After a careful inspection she realized it was not just a simple ship suit as it appeared but a carbon fiber armored under suit. Soldiers wore it under their powered armor. It gave almost the same protection as unpowered body armor.
Although it did not stop chemically propelled rounds and rail gun rounds form kinetically injuring the wearer on impact, it did stop laser and electrical weapon fire. Ellie hugged the soft suit to her, Rosa showing her concern and love again. Quickly she changed out of her ship suit and donned the new armored ship suit. She then carefully wrapped one of her work coveralls around the vital injectors and precious data cube for safety and placed it in her pack on top of her parent’s letter.
Ellie left out a work coverall and folded her last work coverall and dirty ship suit, and packed them in her bag. She would need to find a suit cleaner but was not worried, they were everywhere. Leaving the one work coverall Ellie would wear over her new armored ship suit, resting on top of her armored work boots, to wear tomorrow; she set her pack in the corner and climbed into bed. The stressful day soon found an exhausted Ellie fast asleep.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Ellie was up bright and early, hoping to get a start on solving one of the major obstacles to curing her, the massive processing power needed to design a stable DNA base.
She took a quick shower, brushed her teeth, put on her work coveralls over Rosa's armored ship suit, then sat on the edge the bed and slid her feet into her armored work boots. The work boots were armored to stop anything form harming her feet, a very important safety measure when walking on dangerously sharp trash piles, and with that Ellie jumped up to hurriedly finish packing.
Gathering up her sanitary items form the bathroom, she placed them in a small pouch and set them on top of her packed clothing. Closing up her bag she looked around in an instinctive habit to make sure nothing was left behind. Finding nothing Ellie turned and unlocked the door, nearly running into another guest.
The man looked at her blurrily, reeking of intoxicants, then stumbled passed her. Going down a few door he disappeared into another hotel room. Shaking her head at what adults did to themselves, she made it to the lobby without another incident. The desk counter was empty and, with a deep breath, Ellie excited to a hot new day.
Blinking in the intense sunlight Ellie waited for her eyes to adjust. Finally able to see clearly, Ellie climb into her grav cart and placed her bag on the passenger seat. Ellie checked and found the sensor drone was nearly out of power, so was the grav cart.
She groaned softly, another delay! Pulling out her commpad she ordered a liter of fuel to be delivered to her location. Thankfully Hemwell used a massive amount of fuel so there was a very large helium 3 harvesting operation at the star systems only gas giant, making helium 3 very cheap. On other worlds it could cost ten times as much.
Ellie got out and went to the back of the cart. Opening the storage compartment Ellie check the sensor drone she left to guard her electronics and confirmed the bot was also low on power. Not wanting to sit around doing nothing while waiting for the fuel delivery, Ellie climb into the cargo bay and started to organize the jumbled mess in the back.
Ellie had thrown everything in haphazardly in on the garbage scow, and now the pile of salvage needed to be separated. Ellie started to place the light armored combat suit and suit parts to the left of the compartment but did not get far before a bot interrupted her.
“Miss, did you place an order for a liter of helium 3?”
Ellie maneuvered around her piles of electronics to the opened hatch and jumped out. Standing in front of her holding a small tank was an almost new humanoid bot. Not one manufactured form the main robotics companies, Ellie could tell. It looked like an imitation of Somoko's newest B800's.
Shaking her head to clear this errant thought she confirmed her identify as the one who ordered the fuel.
“On behalf of Hasturon Galactic Gases and Fuel we thank you for your order.”
With that the bot turned and walked off towards the star port. Ellie quickly closed and locked the storage compartment and went to the front of the cart. Getting in again she connected the small tank to the fuel line next to the drive controls.
A quarter of the tank emptied into the grav cart's storage tank and would provide enough fuel for the next two months. Ellie disconnected the tank and moving her bag off the passage seat, she lifted the seat up to uncover a small storage hold under it. Placing the nearly full fuel tank in it, she closed the compartment and set her bag back down.
Running a diagnostic on the cart's micro fusion plant, Ellie found it running at eighty-six percent efficiency. That was great for something so old and used. Ellie sent a command using her biochip for the two sensor bots to plug into the carts electrical grid and recharge.
Ellie was just about to back up when her stomach reminded her she had not eaten yet. Pausing she tried to decide if she should go to the dinner or shop at a store. Reminding herself she needed to save what little credits she had, she decided to go shop at a store. Remembering the desk clerk saying Wholesome Goods was near she got the location quickly form her chip.
Backing up Ellie pulled onto the road and noticed a few other vehicles actually on the road with her. She figured that with the town so small everyone here preferred to walk. Turning at the first intersection she drove a few blocks down, then turned into the stores lot. If she had not used her chip Ellie would have drove right by the small nondescript building.