"So what do I have to actually do? Be the captain, shoot guns, fly the ship?" Mike asked
"No to captain. Captain is a job for, well, an actual captain. Jessie handles the piloting and Frank is in charge of weapons. You have to orchestrate us in doing the right things at the right time." Helen continued her explanation.
Mike stared for a second at her for a second. “So, I’m essentially a manager. And I thought I got out of my earth job but apparently being in space thousands of years and lightyears away isn’t enough.”
“Not just a manager!”, Helen exclaimed “Only the most important and crucial manager allowing the whole ship to operate. And also, primary AI is supposed to be able to pay more attention to any aspect necessary, assist in any duty and even take direct control if needed. But essentially - yes, you will be the center of operations where all the information gathers, so you need to process it and give orders with the bigger perspective at hand.”
“You are also supposed to take and translate most orders from the crew and the captain, but with them not around...” Helen added and trailed off.
“And you think my mushy human brain is able to process the supposedly enormous amounts of information?”
“No, not really. The substrate holds most of the processing power, and we all have a share in its resources – so understanding how to use it effectively is key, not actually remembering anything, but knowing what to uhh… think? To access the necessary information? And to know what information is necessary – that’s your brain part.”
“Right”, Mike agreed. “This makes sense. So the PAI is like a first officer with benefits? And I have access to all the data, that’s clear – my problem is that I don’t know if I’m fast enough to make all the decisions in computer time.”
“Well actually if we cut out all the unnecessary biological decoding for visual and audial stimuli you should be able to pass as a decent PAI. At least that’s my theory.” Helen said unsure.
“So how do we actually connect me to this substrate? Or activate the connection since I assume we are already connected to at least a part of it?”
“We don’t have to activate anything, no, the integration is successful but you just don’t have all the privileges yet. The basic connection is stable though, and that's great news since it has to work before the exam can begin.”
“Wait exam?” Mike interrupted with sudden dread. Several interesting experiences from the university days tried to immediately surface and add to the anxiety. “I have to pass an exam?”
“Yes, you have to qualify for the system to fully recognize you. Through a qualification exam.” Helen answered solemnly.
“What does it entail?”
“No idea.”
Mike started for quite a bit and only received a patient smile back
“What do you mean no idea?!” Mike exclaimed.
“We are not PAI, so we don’t know what an exam for one entails. But I can tell you about our examination since we have to pass them too. Our clearance exam basically involves our main functions.” Helen jumped into a lecture mode, once again assuming a professor-like tone of voice. “Take me for example - first I had to prove that I can perform basic functions and handle communication with the crew. Then there was more focused approach for those who passed that exam. Like an experiment I had to assist with and a simulated medical procedure I had to do. Very exciting for me, but ultimately just a simulation. Drew got to operate an actual real life repair bot and fix broken equipment with it. He's very proud of the score he got.”
“And you are scored? It's not just a pass/no pass?” Mike asked
“Oh yes, the scores determine what kind of ship will be able to request you. The shipyards always try to get the top scorers and obviously the bigger and more important vessels get the best. The score is also not just for fulfilling instructions – there are a lot of considerations to award additional points. Like again Drew for instance by his own admittance was not very thorough but extremely fast.”
Helen thought for a second and continued “Emily told us she got a lot of points for the post-exam interview where she expressed her desire to receive a high score. The very fact that she actually wanted to get a high score, not just fulfill the instructions is already not something bog-standard for a freshly baked AI. I was not that ambitious for my exam, but got some creativity points. And I imagine now, after so many years? If an update comes from the command I will utterly annihilate the exam.”
“What if the score is too low?”
“They delete the AI in question.” Helen stated matter-of-factly.
“That’s… kind of morbid.” Mike shook his head.
“What else is there to do? If your score is too low you are useless and will be a detriment to the ship and the crew that operates it. So, the cores get repurposed. And when you get to the actual ship you get an exam before you are fully integrated into the system – just to make sure nothing got broken in transit, misplaced or anything like that.”
“And I assume that’s the exact exam we are talking about now? New equipment connection?”
“Exactly. Also, the command sends yearly evaluation updates that you prepare for and pass the tests to make sure you are prepared for new equipment, doctrine changes or anything else new. Sometimes there are surprise updates, but that’s more often focused on security. Emily once spent like a month catching up with updates after long range patrol – both mandatory and not. One of the reasons we survived probably.” Helen sighed with a distant look in her eyes.
“So do you have an idea what's the exam going to be for me then?” Mike asked.
“Well...” Helen dragged “Since your main purpose as a PAI is supposed to be orchestrating us it's probably first a bunch of general things - throughput, reliability of connection, data processing. These things we can help you with, it’s easy enough to simulate and you do have access to it. What's specific to a PAI though - we just have no idea. Managing a virtual team of AI’s maybe? Crew communication? Decision making…” Helen spread her hands and shrugged “It isn't documented anywhere. Or at least anywhere we have access to. “
“So how do I even study for this exam? And how many attempts do I have?”
“As far as we are aware there’s no limit on attempts. As for study? Field operation manuals? General ship structure and chain of command operation... “
Mike shuddered. “I can’t say I want to get back to school. I hoped the cramming for exams days were behind me.”
“We will do all we can to help you! We can prepare flash cards! “
“Wait, your species has flash cards too?” Mike asked with horror creeping into his voice.
“No, but we have a bunch of data saved from your earth networks, and Emily is sending me a package of data about your universities right now. So, we can establish the environment most conducive to studying. Hmmm.” Helen scrunched her nose in deep thought, nodded and the glasses glinted with certainty… Did she always wear glasses? “Drugs we can do, no problem. Couple tests and we’ll find what gets you high. Alcohol is also simple. Drew will easily design a plastic red cup… There might be a problem with simulating promiscuous teenage human women though. Is it a deal breaker? Mike why are you staring at me like that?”
“It's called incredulity and no I don’t think comedy movies about drunk student antics are the correct references for what the university is actually like. For me it was mostly boredom and painfully shoving facts you’ll never need inside your head. Just... Give me the field manual or something to start?”
***
Thick transparent panels bore thousands of little scuffmarks, dirty spots and even burns. The massive room had little lighting but shadows only accented the vastness beyond the glass for it was one of the many places in Errata station where form prevailed over function and the emptiness of space was visible directly. No cameras, no tricks, just a massive transparent half-dome built who knows when and still perfectly see-through despite numerous imperfections. Perhaps thousands and thousands of creatures of different races stood here and stared through the glass at the junkyard outside. It was too bad the traffic died down a long time ago, and the only permanent inhabitant was the metallic statue towering above the barely lit debris.
The statue of a lanky suited alien had a guest today. But as much as she apparently enjoyed the view the woman in a pristinely looking mechanic’s jumpsuit tapped her leg impatiently, waiting for another guest to arrive and finally interrupt her quiet stargazing.
The more habitable and populated areas of the station were quite a bit away, which made this old hall not necessarily a complete secret – but definitely a perfect place to stargaze in solace. And to hold clandestine meetings.
Errata station was by far not the only structure in the junkyard but was the only one that felt like a permanent feature. It was one of the biggest structures in the known universe, and proudly declared itself the oldest operational space station. Considering there was no record of the construction date anywhere – it was probably true.
Over the countless years it was built upon, rebuilt and improved, parts of it salvaged or repurposed and often forgotten. Generations upon generations of creatures came here for the numerous riches and dangers of the junkyard and all of them shaped the structure in surprising and conflicting ways.
Errata matched the dump of a space around it. Not a single symmetrical part, a mishmash of habitats and ports connected to one another, growing like fungus over a particularly old and rotten log. Some habitats abandoned, some rebuilt anew and adapted to a particular species that had more money than sense to build an addition on this forsaken place specifically for its citizens. It was a giant floating city and nobody knew which of the deep parts was the original construction. As far as the current population was concerned Errata was always here at the very edge of the galactic junkyard.
Maybe some deeper levels could hold answers to many of the questions but those levels were not exactly safe to explore – both due to environmental hazards and their inhabitants.
It was on one of these rarely used levels underneath the maintenance area for Qoufi plaza that held the room with the perfect view.
First footsteps, and then a loud noise and a bit of swearing broke the silent stargazing as a pair of boots kicked a random piece of junk aside. The boots contained an average sized man in a military style jumpsuit with some minor padding.
“Could you maybe have picked an easier spot to reach? I swear I’m going to spend forever washing the smell of bugrat droppings.”, the main said gruffly.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Uh-huh,” the woman in front of the panoramic view raised a brow in response. “Temsel your sense of smell is non-existent, stop whining.”
“Even if it was true I still want to go on dates. And there’s nothing saying “filthy no-name pathetic poor maintcrawler” than the smell of the lower levels.” Temsel sighed and shook his head with a smile. “How have you been Rina?”
“Is it a bit of worry about dear old me I’m detecting?”
“It is”, said Temsel disarmingly.
“I… I’ve been better.” Rina looked at him seriously again. “Oh, you are no fun. What about the banter!?”
“Ah, yes, the mandatory greetings banter, how I missed it,” Temsel rolled his eyes sarcastically and continued. “Can we maybe get straight to business? Unless you fancy us waddling through a swarm of bugrats that smelled our sorry asses.”
“Relax, they shouldn’t swarm as much this time of the year.” Said Rina, “Besides aren’t you a part-time exterminator?”
“Exactly because of that I don't fancy myself being bitten, infected and left with no means to eat as the full treatment of whatever disease cocktail they carry will cost me a fortune I don't have. Speaking about fortunes... What do you have for me?” Temsel asked expectantly.
“Right, let’s get straight to business then,” Rina nodded “You know how Exotos has been in some trouble lately?”
“One or two things, yes.” He said with a bit of sarcasm in his voice. “By “some trouble” you mean the hostile takeover that’s fucking up the whole section of the station?”
“Yeah, I don't care what they call it - war, takeover, special operation. They have a lot of problems on their hands and this is the best time for a little business.” Rina said dismissively. “I have reliable sources that Exotos can’t hold on much longer and will collapse within a week.”
“Oh. And who is exactly the source of these reliable news?”
“Does it really matter?”
“It does” Nodded Temsel
“Agaddot “
“Agaddot? He almost shouted, incredulous, “That lying asshole is…”
“Still the most reliable information broker this side of the canyon.” Rina interrupted. “It’s not the point! The point is Exodos are vulnerable, overextended and not going to exist very soon.”
“Not going to say I’ll miss them much – but what exactly are you proposing?” Temsel asked.
“So, there’s a hangar on the edge of their territory. It holds some contraband medicine. Very expensive contraband medicine.” Rina emphasized the words “very” and “expensive”.
“Right, you want to vulture some merchandise while Exotos is distracted elsewhere. Let me guess, it’s not medicine, it’s actually drugs?”
“Well in theory it can be used as drugs, but it’s genuine medicine. And it’s just sitting in a hangar doing nothing while the turf war is ongoing.”
“Stealing something from the people who are alert and on edge from the constant ongoing turf war is still not sounding like a good idea.” Temsel mused.
“That's just it! They are alert about fighting for their lives! They don’t care about the thieves in some forgotten hangar! This is the best time to do it. And on top of that we just need one crate – get in, grab the crate, get out.”
“Still not convinced. A single crate of even very expensive drugs isn’t worth the risk.” Temsel huffed.
Rina looked at him seriously for several seconds. “There’s Resanol in there.” She added.
“Oh. Isn’t that the church made drug? Yea I heard it can be pretty expensive. But…” Temsel tracked off.
“My head hurts lately.” Rina stated with her lips tight.
Temsel just looked at her for a while with an instantly stoic expression on his face. “Fuck.” He said sharply. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” Rina nodded.
“Fuuuuck.” Temsel growled resigning to his fate and starting to pace in front of the glass dome. “Okay If I agree to it. I get 70 percent.”
“What? No way, I did all the prep work! Are you kidding me?”
“If I agreed initially then yes, we could do an even split. Now it’s personal. I don’t want to space your corpse so I am inclined to at least listen to the details, but this still is a monumentally stupid time to do it. So, I got 70.”
“I don’t even need you to shoot anything! Just an able body I can trust to carry the crate through the vents!”
“And trust is expensive.” Temsel stated with a confident smile on his face.
Rina silently glowered at him
“Take it or leave it sunshine.” He spread his hands
“You get 60. “
“Deal!” He grinned happily. “Now I haven’t agreed yet, but where the fuck did Exotos get a whole crate of Resanol? I heard it’s been impossible to get for the past year. The fanatics are keeping a much tighter lid on the supply.”
“That they are. Ever since their ship got blown up by some pirates. Remember that news? About a year ago”
Temsel scratched his head a bit. “Yea, I remember, there was an investigation and everything and a threat of a righteous crusade against all pirates. Then they actually caught the pirates hoisted them up on shockspears and streamed their twitching corpses for a day. Gruesome.”
“Right, about that ship. Or rather what it was shipping.”
“The resanol shipment?” He asked.
“Yep. Aga got a short video of the hangar from some idiot who works there and wanted to jump off Exotos by selling any information he could. Aga then was able to determine that one specific crate in a pile has a couple of very specific markings”
“And it’s just been sitting there? For a year and nobody noticed?” Temsel asked with suspicion.
“Do you know how a resanol crate should look like?” Rina asked.
“Well no,..”
“Me neither and I actually need the stuff. My take is it’s been cooling off as a long-term investment.”
Temsel nodded understandingly. “So how much is in there? Hundred doses?”
“Thousands. We’re talking about around 10000 capsules in that crate.”
“Woah. That’s… What’s the current price on it?”
“I’s around 2500 for a capsule. Rather it was like that when it was still available. And now the supply is almost dry and I’m not the only one who’s starting to feel the lack, so more people need it than ever. And more people would end up going to the church if we don’t steal it so it’s like a community service.”
“A well-paid community service. Damn that’s a 25 million credit crate. And our cut is?”
“Not as big. It would be good if we can get 20% out of it. Finders fee and reselling and we actually need to put it out slowly to not draw too much attention, so the payout won’t be immediate too.” Rina sighed painfully discarding millions of credits in potential profit into the void of space.
“That I don’t like.” Temsel shook his head
“Me too, but between a possibility of earning a shitload of money and ending up a glorified engine part? I prefer this chance.”
“Is it that bad of a life though? Living on a luxury liner, traveling the galaxy, seeing the sights…” He trailed off.
“Have you actually seen anyone retiring from a resonance navigator contract? Me neither. They are essentially slaves and I severely doubt their cages are gilded. And that’s if you actually get to be one and have the aptitude. Even getting to that point? Going through the church “training”” Rina spit the word sarcastically. “More like torture that I am absolutely not going through as long as I live.”
“Chill, chill, I’m not actually suggesting you go to the church. Those fucks always give me the creeps anyway with their attitude. Sorry.”
“No, it’s all good.” Rina refocused her mind. “So there we have it – maintcrawl to the warehouse, grab the box and run. Ideally nobody even notices and we delete any camera footage. But even if there are hidden cameras – not that anyone will be able to do anything about it since Exotos is going down.”
“And at the end we get about 5 million between us…”
“Sounds ridiculous right?”
“Sounds too good to be true, but damn it it’s tempting.” Temsel shook his head again and gazed through the glass, distant look in his eyes.
“Starting to plan where you are going to spend it?”
“I haven’t agreed yet” Temsel said
“You did when you decided to come to the meeting and you know that.” Rina rolled her eyes.
“That readable huh?”
“Yep.” Rina joined in staring at the junkyard. “Never said no before, even when you should have.”
“I did say no to the stupid idea of opening a noodle shop!”
“After you actually asked around and created a business plan.”
“How do you know about that?” Temsel raised an eyebrow.
“Next time don’t do it in the open if it’s such a big secret? I literally just looked over your shoulder. Honestly for an exterminator I assume you would have some special awareness.”
“Oh, go crawl in a vent, Rina!” Temsel shook his head in frustration.
“That’s exactly what we are going to do now.” Rina smiled in response.
Navigating the vents on Errata was a pastime, an occupation, and sometimes even an art.
While not strictly illegal, maintcrawling was a way to get yourself noticed by authorities. After all normal people don’t usually dive into the confusing maze of tunnels, habitats, wires and panels where there’s not much to do other than something illegal. The only ones who had business being here were the maintenance people, pest control and flamewardens.
And as soon as you step away from the main thoroughfares and sectors directly connected to the monorail network you got a lot of secret rooms, abandoned habitats and corridors in various state of disrepair. Some depressurizations did happen but were way less common than you would expect, and lower levels experienced even less of that.
“Rina, your route sucks.” Temsel heaved a massive machine carcass out of the way, unblocking a big vent cover in the wall that was behind it. “Should have started way closer”
“We would if I knew where. Sorry I’m not a flamewarden who knows the exact location of every ratbeetle dropping.” Rina used a portable impact driver to unscrew the grated cover from the wall. After the second screw fell the whole panel sheered the last screw and collapsed under its own weight with a bang. “It’s close. We should be above the hanger in just about 20 meters down this vent.”
“Security devices scan?”
“I have a scanner running, yes.” Rina replied glancing at a small tablet in her hand. “Still nothing.”
After 20 meters of a luxuriously spacious ventilation tunnel (by ventilation tunnel standards) a grate came into view directly below the crawlers. The hangar below was barely lit and almost completely empty aside from some stacked crates in several piles. Rina attached an extender to the power tool, pushed it through the grate and started unscrewing the bolts on the outside while Temsel secured a magnetic clamp to the top of the vent to get them down safely.
With the fourth bolt unscrewed the grate gave and was slowly lowered down on a cable, Rina and Temsel immediately following.
The hangar was T-shaped, with the leg of the T being one they dropped into.
“Oh, lucky!” Rina whispered. “See that stack? There’s our crate right there!” Rina immediately started making her way around a loader to the nearby crate stack in question.
“I see it.” Temsel followed.
With a light stretch Temsel dragged a large suitcase size crate from the pile, careful not to drop it when…
A metal slug slammed into the crate stack showering both of them with sparks. Both of them didn’t even glance at where it came from and dove behind the crates in a panic.
“Drop your fucking weapons and get out with your hands raised!” A loud and commanding voice shouted at them. “No funny jokes, you are in our sights!”
“No security, huh?” Temsel muttered angrily
“I said come out with your hands up and maybe, just maybe we won’t kill you on the spot.” The voice continued.
“Make a run for it?” Rina whispered and eyed the crates nearby where a cable hanging from the ceiling marked their route to salvation.
“What? NO! I don’t know where you got your impression of firefights but trained people don’t miss running targets THAT often. Got a smoke grenade or something?” Temsel whispered back
“What am I an enforcer?”
“Or we will just throw a grenade behind that crate! Come out now!” The voice was becoming angrier with each next phrase.
But before any decision could be made a loud nose sounded in the distance. At first Rina thought they pulled a general alarm but it didn’t sound like it. Rather it was a pretty standard sound of a heavy-duty hangar door informing everyone that if you don’t want to get crushed you probably shouldn’t stand near it.
An incredulous “what?”” followed the sound and Rina dared to take a peek from behind the crate, only to see several bright blue streaks fly screaming at the four guards standing in the middle of the hangar.
One went down immediately, his face melted with a direct hit from overheated plasma. The other two had enough training and luck to retreat behind cover.
Whoever came into the hangar was not playing around, and Rina didn’t really want to meet them. In fact, she and Temsel who was peeking from the other side of the crate pile turned to each other at the same time, nodded and made a mad dash back to the wire.
The motor in the climber strained under the weight of the two but swiftly hoisted them up to the vent while the battle was raging. Temsel awkwardly climbed in after Rina, dragging the heavy crate along with him. They looked at each other again and wordlessly decided to get the fuck out as soon as possible instead of sticking around to retrieve the cable and the clamp. Especially because the noises of battle died down pretty quickly, with one side’s presumed overwhelming victory. Several minutes of panicked running, climbing and crawling later the pair stopped at a barely lit alcove behind a wall of broken furniture.
“Fuck…” Was the only word the gasping lungs of Rina could produce.
“I know!” Heaved Temsel. “Fucking plasma guns? What kind of an army is taking over?”
“Ugh.” Rina sat down trying to calm her madly beating heart. “I will be flaking scales for a week after this. It was too close.”
“No combat, right? Simple get in and get out? No security other than cameras?” Temsel mocked sarcastically.
“Well we didn’t do any combat now did we? And now we do have a crate.”
“Is everything even in it?” Temsel shoved the container closer to Rina, looking for the latch to open it.
“Well let’s see!” Rina pointed her flashlight at the crate to let him find the latch easier.
There was no coded lock, no scanner of any kind, just a simple latch, and with a press of a button the container opened simply displaying its contents. Surprisingly they didn’t disappoint. Rows and rows of small capsules glinted in the light, as if promising a solution to all of the pains and problems.
“It’s missing about 10% of capsules from a glance. Seems Exodos were slowly dripping it to the market. Or it wasn’t full in the first place. Regardless… it’s almost all of it.” Rina whispered with disbelief.
“Wow. We… are actually alive and made it out with it.” Temsel agreed.
Rina carefully pulled a tiny capsule with her fingers.
“I have an injector for this at home.” She said and stashed the capsule in her front pocket. “I’ll stash several more of these for personal use just in case. Should last me years.”
“That’s coming out of your share.” Temsel said sardonically.
She just rolled her eyebrows in response.
“And Rina?” He continued “Let’s not do this again. I don’t like being shot at.”
“If all goes well, we won’t have to do this. Or anything. Ever.” Rina smiled in response.