kittyboy: "You have a ship engineer onboard?"

I asked the valkyrie crew member, whom I shall call @valleyman.

valleyman: "Of course."

kittyboy: "Excellent. Can you take me to them? We get heavy gravitational waves that disrupt an asteroid this small. Have had some ships get dark matter annihilation problems in consumption. Not a huge deal, but we've seen quantum spikes to the blockchain that prevent DEAD drives from working."

I was talking out of my ass, but I was also kind of thinking aloud about what could have caused my DEAD from working when I tried to bubble earlier (now, that ended up being rather fortunate considering what I discovered, but it still bothered me). I admit that I don't know that much about science. Jargon, jargon, jargon. Throw in the word quantum for good measure. It was mostly nonsense. I didn't think I'd be able to get any outbound signals to pull information off the network, so nonsense it was.

I kept rambling, getting more heated and concerned, trying to irritate @valleyman enough to want to offload me to someone else - in this case, the ship engineer.

valleyman: "Yeah, yeah. I get you. I'll take you to @stardvark."

On the inside, the valkyrie was chic but no-nonsense. This was a clean ship, designed with purpose, beauty, and function. The floor was the color of dark metal, but I can only describe it as soft. It looked like they put an overlay atop the metal, so it was firm but comfortable and grippy. The side panels and machinery up to the ceiling were a lighter gray metallic.

Walls and ceilings were white in the hallways, where the light was bright but not unpleasant. Every room with a terminal quickly pivoted to dim lighting, and the walls, ceiling, and floor were black to reduce the light further. Small lights on the ground showed just enough for you to keep your bearings. All the chairs were leather, the organish-yellowish color of butternut squash.

As this was a 10 to 20 person ship, mostly they would have a medical wing, a small mess hall that was probably intermixed as a game room or lounge, a dorm area, a command center, a small armory, an engine room, and a cockpit. Probably they had a few holding cells as well.

I kept mumbling the whole way.

kittyboy: "If you don't flip the discomfort imbalancer for that situation, the spark you get from the flange imbulator creates enough energy to short out the other chip."

kittyboy: "When that happens, you're in upsy downsy electromagnetic flow, and the capacitors aren't built for that over a long period of time."

kittyboy: "So you see? At some point, it's just going to decentralize."

kittyboy: "How can you possibly annihilate dark matter then?!?"

@valleyman got me to the hall where the engine room was. They pointed over to the right and started walking away.

valleyman: "@stardvark's down that way."

kittyboy: "Thank you. Remember! Don't stick your finger in the ..."

A door closed behind the fleeing @valleyman cutting me off.

"Turbuloculator," I finished out loud.

That wasn't so hard after all.

Now that I was alone, I could technically take my chances wandering the ship. However, since I had a reason to be in the engine room already established, and someone who would vouch for me since they left me all by myself, I figured my best move was @stardvark, so I walked toward the engine room.

#LyingRule 5: when in doubt, follow the existing lie. It's easier than establishing another lie.

kittyboy: "@stardvark i assume."

I waved. @stardvark looked like what I figured an old Alcubierre Drive would look like. He'd been expanded and contracted too many times. He was old and thin, and he walked like a squirrel (not an aardvark).

Somehow his beard and mustache were dark brown, while his hair was entirely white-ish gray. He wore yellow engineering scrubs, with lots of pockets, hooks, straps, slots, and attachments. Yellow was supposedly to make them easier to see if they got stuck out in space.

It was extremely rare to find someone in an older person's body. It's acceptable to port your mind into a younger version of yourself, to pick the age you want your clone to be. At least, it is for many people. Not for me. The Extrovert Starmada picks my optimal age based on the mission. We've also solved the aging problem with our wonderful nanobot technology.

Finding an old person in military service meant that they were extremely important or they were cloned to be old by design. Some people believed that allowing your clone to age was more authentic, so they embraced the aging process. In the military, you needed a high rank or special connections for that to be allowed.

I hadn't really formed a philosophical opinion on that myself, if I wanted to age. It was irrelevant for me. The starmada decided my age and gave my anti-aging nanobots, so that was that. But, I admit, aging could lend itself to being more authentically human. Ashfield's Law of Authenticity certainly supported it.

Long story short, @stardvark was old, and that fascinated me.

stardvark: "Hello. Welcome to the heart of the Eternis."

The Eternis! Awesome name! I approved.

I needed something to talk with @stardvark about, so I figured I might as well complain about the DEAD engine problem on my i35.

#LyingRule 1: when you need to lie, use the truth.

kittyboy: "Thank you. I'm honored. Just checking in with you."

kittyboy: "We've had reports of DEAD malfunctions on a few ships in the area. No clear diagnosis yet. When attempting to bubble, the DEAD is unresponsive."

@stardvark said something I didn't quite understand, but he sounded like he might know what was going on.

stardvark: "All this to say, it's probably the quantum battery. People post about this stuff all the time online, and it's always the quantum battery. Nanospark plug? Maybe. But did you try replacing the battery?"

I had not. My ship was blown up.

kittyboy: "Yes, I did. Still no luck."

I needed to get him to do something, anything to keep him occupied, so I could try uploading a memoryshard and accessing ship logs.

kittyboy: "I was thinking, could you run a diagnostic and send it over to us? I've been collecting readings to run statistical analysis on the problem. Since you just arrived, whatever it is might show up now compared to an older report."

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I was happy that this all seemed to actually make sense. Well done, me.

kittyboy: "If you can send an older report from before you arrived too, that would be fantastic."

@stardvark rubbed at his arms, thinking, then nodded a few times to himself and started moving to one of the consoles.

stardvark: "Suppose there's no harm. It'll take several minutes to run. Who should I send it to?"

Shit.

kittyboy: "Tell you what. I'll sit with you, if you don't mind, while it runs. Then you can just dump it to a datashard. That way I can completely eradicate it when I'm done."

@stardvark shrugged and got to work. I sat at a nearby console, pretending not to notice the little ports to plug into. I gave him a few minutes before making small talk (or big talk).

kittyboy: "Must be nice to work on a #valkyrie."

stardvark: "Why, thank you."

stardvark: "I mean, it IS nice, but I'm actually a shipbuilder by trade. Most of this is my design."

kittyboy: "So even nicer to be able to work on it."

stardvark: "Yes, yes. I keep playing around with it. Swapping modules is a bit more laborious, but I've customized the Eternis a bit. Played around a lot with the settings and configurations. I even added another ship mode to her."

kittyboy: "No way!"

stardvark: "Yes sir, I did. Now we have (1) cruise, (2) battle, (3) stealth, (4) help, and a mode I call (5) obliteration."

That sounded so fucking cool that I wanted to hug him.

kittyboy: "What is obliteration mode!?!"

stardvark: "It routes all the power to weapons, shields, jamming, and engines. Basically, you are fast, agile, and extremely powerful, but also a jamming tank of a beast."

kittyboy: "Why not run that way all the time?"

He shook his head at me.

stardvark: "You didn't listen. I said all the power. There's nothing left for gravity controls, heating and air conditioning, you name it. All the life support systems go offline. But that and some recalibration of settings and the Eternis is unstoppable. She's a flat out MACHINE."

I thought about that. Made sense. You'd be on a time clock for obliteration mode, but it would be worth it for the time you could use it.

I was about to ask him why you couldn't just get more power from somewhere else. Couldn't you just plug in another quantum battery or something? But I suspected it was something so basic, so fundamental, that if I asked, it would give up my cover.

So I just nodded.

kittyboy: "Brilliant!"

stardvark: "Program's running. Can I get you some coffee? Or tea? While we wait. I am personally fond of tea and keep a stash of some unique blends."

kittyboy: "Sure. Tea would be wonderful. Mint or any green tea is fine. A spoon of sugar too."

kittyboy: "Actually, I take that back. Surprise me."

stardvark: "I have an oolong tea from a farm deep in the fault canyons of Miranda, aged in silicate rock, that will be perfect."

@stardvark smiled and hopped to it. He slapped me on the shoulder as he walked by, then was off down the hall. I imagined he was headed to the mess hall or lounge area. Based on the ship layout, he would have to go up a level and left. I probably had at least five minutes and at most seven while he prepared the tea.

So, now was my moment. I reached for my left arm, grabbed a qwire, and plugged in.

I needed to authenticate.

Not a problem. I had lifted an ID signature off of @valleyman while I was boring him to death with gibberish. I really just needed that way in. AI algorithms and a bit of self-direction would take care of the rest. As I said before, I can tell the future. But that's not the important part. The important part is how I do it.

I can run multiple scenarios, and I can run more scenarios than most, and my scenarios are better because I see connections better than most. This is a unique trait of my brain. I just see connections that others don't. Give that ability a supercomputer, and I'm a precious commodity.

In hindsight, I've probably undersold myself to the Extrovert Starmada and masked too many of my capabilities. There was also the time I was licking suckers and sticking them to switches all over the starbase. The Extrovert Starmada frowns on things like that. I had my work cut out for me if I wanted to get on their good side.

I just wanted a quiet life honestly. Being a Wavepilot was not it though, so I made a resolution there, on that valkyrie ship. I needed to start impressing my superiors. Even being on the valkyrie would be huge, but no one would know unless I could get the information somehow into the hands of the starmada.

It only took about 87 seconds for me to find what I was looking for, the reason Chief Master Bigwig Sergeant @bronzelion was here for a visit.

I played the log, all while replicating a bit of myself and these memories into data storage on the computer, along with a little catnip virus that I set to activate after the Eternis made 144 warp jumps.

***

transmission_id: Ik1NJy2xTgd1g3ZOihZcXipOEwvkwQdbOExHR4qYY9UITu9Eig7

@bronzelion, your presence is requested at Starlab 41665.1.

We have successfully completed zos612 sample of the zombie_os virus. Unlike prior strains, we believe we have now been able to encode the virus with the capability of infiltrating the host's genetic code such that a future clone of the infected would perform a delayed release and reactivation.

In addition, this strain contains the zos572 enhancement that allows for physical and digital proximity replication and DDoS defense.

This means the virus can actively seek open networks and search for the host based on genetic code. Indefinitely - or until found and deleted.

In short, this creates a personalized version of the virus that can infect any future version of an aiways, making them an overtaken (what most people basely refer to as zombies).

Once any clone with matching genetic identifiers connects to a network where its personal virus strain resides, it will get infected and eventually become overtaken. We have added a randomly delayed release to obfuscate how they got the virus, meaning the virus will be latent upon first infection. The infected will not know they have zos612 unless they detect it via a deep scan.

zos612 will activate in an infected aiways anywhere from one day to seven years after the initial infection.

That's right, @bronzelion.

The zombies are coming!

I know you will be eager to see them.

We are ready.

@moonqueen, Chief Master Sergeant, Biodata Services

***

And that was just the latest entry. There were hundreds of messages. The Introvert scientists had been working on this for years. We had seen some attempts at this before - trying to hack and take over an aiways' mind. In some cases it even succeeded on small scales. But if a zombie_os virus could do what they were describing, that could win the war.

I kept scanning, and rapidly summarizing logs. There was a video.

I cringed as they showed one of the infected aiways, a round man with a blank expression, holding a cord with a grapple-like extremity, chasing a woman around a room. She was locked in there. Screaming.

She probably had never screamed so much in her life.

I paused the video and checked my timer. I needed to wrap up. But you know me and my curiosity. I needed to know. I needed what was happening to sync in. I pressed play again.

She dodged. She ran. He wouldn't stop. And she knew he wouldn't stop. She was trying to stay out of the corners. And she had figured out that if she ducked, she could get around him.

So she did. She ducked and moved gracefully, if you can say that about someone screaming frantically. Short red hair. Nothing for the man to grab there. Lean and agile. She had the advantage there.

But she would know that she was getting tired. He would not.

It was hard to watch. I didn't need my futurecasting to know what was going to happen. He was tiring her out without even trying to tire her out.

Finally he got enough of a grip on her arm. She couldn't move.

I UNPLUGGED.

I was sweaty. My heart was racing.

I had to blink several times and wipe my face to bring myself back to the engine room of the Eternis.

My legs were shaking. I sat, counting my breaths. Telling myself that whatever happened in Starlab 41665.1 needed to be stopped. I needed to make sure my memories were found.

But I had done what I could. My upload and download were finished the moment I had unplugged. I was done.

"It's okay," I said, calming myself. "I'm done. I did it."

All I could do now was hope that we, the Extrovert Starmada, were clever enough, or lucky enough, to find my memoryshard or the bits of it I stashed in the computer system. If that failed, I had to rely on my catnip virus to do its job and reach out to me.

There was nothing more to do now, really, except to die.

"Time to die." I perked myself up, shaking out my arms, motivating myself. "let's do this."

I could have self-destructed, but this ship was too beautiful for that.

"I'm the end of the world," I shouted instead. I sprang from my chair, took off down the hall, and went for what I figured was the command center.

"The end of the world is me!" I hissed. "Bow down or face my fury! I shall destroy you all!"

It honestly took longer than I thought to get myself killed. I must have done three loops around a corridor where the lounge, command center, and armory converged. Maybe it was because I was screaming, and they found that fascinating. So I shook one of them.

"You're made of ice! And I am the heat lamp!" I screamed. I shook him again. "I am the heat lamp!!!"

I finally noticed @stardvark come into the area, with two glasses of tea. When he saw me, he nearly dropped them.

I gave him a pleading look, then charged.

"Obliteration mode is my mode!" I yelled at him.

He calmly set down the tea, pulled out a shotgun, and blasted a hole through my chest.