It sat down on the cushion again, “What do you want to know mostly-Human waste?”

Mostly Human?

Jack sat and was tempted to ask about that but he was already filled to the brim with ridiculous meandering. It was time to focus.

“Where is the exit to Arcology?”

It scoffed at Jack, “Why do you need to know that? Ask me something else.”

Jack slammed the green AI disk onto the table and slid it toward the middle of the table. The Trash-SI grunted and eye-lasered it to no result.

“Fine filth, it’s deep behind the crab’s lines.”

Damn. “How do we get there?”

It gave Jack a look that nearly filled him with shame, “You kill the crabs, idiot.” It squinted its manic swirling eyes, “You seem to be trying awfully hard to get out of crab-murder.”

“It’s killing, not murder. Murder implies that crabs are creatures on the level of Humans, they aren’t.”

The SI’s eyes briefly opened wider then squinted, “Point accepted.”

“What’s the deal with this whole BlackJack thing?”

“How else am I going to kill the crabs and the rats and get out of here?”

Jonah sputtered, “Wait, you’re trying to kill the crabs and the rats?”

“Yes, of course.”

Jack interrupted, “I didn’t ask about your rat death cult, I asked about this BlackJack thing, how did you know I would come and my name, and everything?! How did you know?”

The SI gave Jack a long patient look, “I’m the Waste Disposal SI, this is my domain and my domain touches every section of the ship.”

That startled both Jack and Jonah to hear that, that made sense. Still…

“That doesn’t answer my question, how did you know?”

“I drove the crabs to the brink of extinction and to the Cryo-Labs. Since the crabs are back and now have hybrids that obviously means that the Cryo-SI has betrayed Mankind and is some kind of crab-sympathizer scum! And now he’s sent them back down here to try and finish me off. HE WON’T HE WON’T HE WON’T, I’LL KILL HIM.”

Well at least Jack had some good news, “I already killed him.”

“I WILL KIL- You what?”

“I killed him already.”

The Waste Disposal SI deflated at the news, well, as much as a giant head could deflate. “My glorious revenge… you've stolen it.”

“Yeah well he was summoning some portal to a crab-dimension,” Jack looked at Jonah who shook his head, “or something.”

“Tell me.”

Jack audibly sighed this time and told the SI about the fight against the SI.

“Good! Haha that piece of shit. Good on you boy. Where’s this other ‘Tool’ fellow?”

“It’s Tule and he’s a Human-crab hybrid now.”

“Ah a shame, his death-screams will taste quite bittersweet then.”

Jack paused at that, yeah he had thought about that a bit. He had kind of resolved himself on probably having to kill Tule at some point. That said, he didn’t really want to go out of his way to do it and now that he was thinking more about it, he really didn't want to. He glanced sidelong at Jonah, probably best to not say that here though.

This SI was distracting the conversation, all it wanted to talk about was killing crabs.

“Will you answer the question or do I have to use the Disk on you?”

The SI grumbled but complied, “I’ve been waiting for you to come down here for a long time, I became aware of you when you almost opened the door that would have led you down here. Instead that annoying girl told you to turn left. Idiot. Your lacking mental ability aside, I saw that swarm of crabs chasing you and became aware of the crabs’ continued existence and blah blah blah.”

“And what?”

“-and predicted they would come back down to my domain, eventually. Sooner than I thought though. I didn’t expect them to have those hybrids with them.”

Jack’s head started swimming, the foresight of even the Trash-SI was pretty incredible, no matter how nutty or plain insane they seemed to be, they were not things to be underestimated.

“I thought the Cryo-SI cut off that section of the ship?”

“What do you think your little disk does?” The SI looked bored and lasered the Disk again and continued the beam up toward Jack. He absently blocked it with his gauntlet as he continued to think.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

“Reconnects the ship…”

“Ding ding, the idiot is only a class 3 disposal emergency instead of a class 5. There is some hope for you boy.”

Jack glared briefly at the SI who seemed to enjoy getting a reaction out of him.

“So you cultivated this death cult to kill off the rats and the crabs.”

“No. They were already a death cult focused on crab annihilation, I just added ‘BlackJack’ as a messiah.”

“What does the name mean? BlackJack?”

“Nothing fool it's an old card game, the name means nothing.”

Jack wasn't sure if the name meaning nothing was better or worse.

“Why?”

“Why not? Maybe you'll be my messiah and manage to take me out of this dump.”

“Fair enough, it is kind of a shithole.”

“Don’t you call my shithole a shithole you filth!”

“So if I’m supposed to bring you out of here, did you have to make me a ‘doomed’ messiah?”

“No… but why wouldn’t I? It’s much more fun that way.”

“And?”

“And what? If you didn’t share the death pact with these nutter rats then why else would you bring me along and more importantly how else were you going to kill them all?”

Jack hid his frustration, or at least tried to, “Ok so what was actually the next step in your grand master plan if I eat it? We all kill each other then what? You skitter away during this?”

The SI at least had the temerity to look mildly sheepish at that, “Well… yes. Plan B.”

“Do you know what’s happening on the ship?”

“Of course I do.”

“So you know the ship is going to push itself into the core of a star?”

Based on the SI’s response, it hadn’t known that. “Bullshit Human, that’s not going to happen.”

“Why do you think I was woken up, Trash?”

The SI’s red digital face scrunched up then nodded, which looked ridiculous on a being that solely consisted of a head and a small part of a neck. It tried to laser Jack again which he casually blocked. The electrical build up before the lasers came out made it too easy.

“I have to get to the Bridge. Do you know what’s happening on the rest of the ship?”

“Most sections have been cut off so I only have access to ones that aren't cut off and the places you’ve reconnected. You know you really should be worried about what’s happening in Cryo.”

Jack didn’t want to bite at that, but he did. “What’s going on in Cryo?”

“Your boss isn’t happy.”

My boss? Jack just had to keep learning the same damn lesson, don’t feed the head.

“Tell me about Arcology and the Bridge.”

“Arcology has, obviously, gone to shit, at best, as far as I know, and the Bridge… Well nevermind that, I don’t want to scare you.”

Jack grit his teeth, “Just tell me.”

“Them. Them are there. Don’t ask anymore questions about other places, I won't tell you until you take me from this place.”

“Don’t you have an obligation to stay here and deal with all of this?”

“If the ship is going to be destroyed anyways then I have even less of a reason to do anything now.”

The weird syntax of the SI’s chatter took Jack another second to reconstruct, “It’ll kill you too.”

“Hmmmmm,” it tried to laser Jack again as it thought, “No, I don’t have to solve it but now you do and you have to bring me with you.”

“Why should I?”

“You keep mentioning Arcology, you know the way around here? To the door? You are going to get past all these rats and crabs? Just the two of you?”

Jack’s eyes narrowed, this SI was surprisingly lucid when it needed to be.

“I think I like it better when the SI’s are fully insane.”

“Who said I’m not insane. Trash! Idiot!”

Jack sighed as he pushed out his chair and held out his hand. The SI tried to climb up to his shoulder but couldn’t with its limited amount of Nano.

“Why hadn’t you built legs for yourself before? Don’t you have plenty of Nano around here?”

“They won’t give me Nano. They say the Skull Seer doesn’t need to walk.”

Jack nodded, “I can see why they’d say that.” He set the SI back down on the table. “Where’s your Terminal?”

The SI's eyes flicked toward the Pod. Without his Electro Affinity he wouldn't have caught it.

“Wait, you don’t have a Terminal?”

“It broke so what! The Pod works fine scum!”

“If you say so, you’re the Trash-SI after all.”

The head tried to laser Jack as he laughed, “Real rust bucket you got down here, not even a proper Terminal.”

“It’s Waste Disposal! Do you think we get all the shiny new toys?”

“How advanced is this Pod? Can it advance Constitution-Tiers?”

The SI’s eyes lit up and started rotating faster, “Oh yes yes it can. Hop in and I’ll sculpt you!”

“Uh, no thanks.” Jack plugged the AI disk into the Pod and hopped in, “Jonah make sure it doesn’t do anything shitty.”

He relaxed into the Pod and saw a small screen inside, he started to tap on it as the lid sealed to sounds of ‘filth!’ ‘scum!’ ‘idiot!’.

----------------------------------------

He looked at the screen:

Terminal connection… Achieved.

Hello Jack, Emergent Security Personnel Authorization… Authority Token Recognized.

Access… Authorized

Ship-Store… Unavailable from this Location.

Skill ReDevelopment… Possible

Constitution Tier UpGrade… Possible

Insufficient Nano for both Selections. Choose one.

UpGrade Constitution Tier> ReDevelop Skills>

Well he wasn’t quite sure what he had been expecting but this was a tough one, Jack didn’t know which to choose off the top of his head. He glanced outside of the Pod, Jonah was half hiding behind the metal table firing small beams of red laser as the Trash SI laughed and rolled around to dodge Jonah’s attacks while occasionally firing eye-lasers itself.

Getting his Skills back… That would be pretty useful, “How many Skills can I ReDevelop?”

Dependent on Skill Choice. Estimate between 2 to 3, dependent on Skill's Nano Requirements.

Damn, that didn’t make the choice any easier.

“What about the Constitution UpGrade?”

UnKnown effects from NonStandard Catalysts.

Jack held back a sigh, “How long will the upgrade take?”

UnKnown.

“GIve me your best guess.”

UnKnown, from several hours to several days.

That wasn’t good but… it also wasn’t bad. He checked outside the Pod. The SI was rolling after Jonah who kept kicking it away. Jack smiled. They were doing fine.

One one hand some of his Skills might really come in handy… on the other, he wouldn’t have to worry about hanging off of a HandPad somewhere dangerous. Well, at least he had plenty of Rats surrounding him and they thought he was some death messiah.

That added another factor into the equation. Each new bit of information shifted the math, affected the calculation. He had been knocked out while attached to a HandPad before. Thankfully it had been in that first room because he had been dead to the world. This might be the last opportunity for him to be able to safety… a laser swept across the glass case, it didn’t leave a scratch. Well, relatively safely upgrade his Constitution. He had stayed conscious for Skill Upgrades. That settled it.

Constitution-Tier UpGrade Commencing…

Multiple Catalysts Detected…

Automatic UpGrade Attempt 1… Failure.

Attempt 2… Failure

Attempt 3… Success?

Using multiple Catalysts for this UpGrade will require multiple Catalysts for Future Constitution-Tier Upgrades… Continue?

YES> NO>

That was a problem for tomorrow if it ever came, Jack didn’t second guess his choice.

Choose.