Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-One - Movie Day
“Day?”
“I’m a little busy, Candle,” Day said.
“Day!”
Day let out an electronic sigh that coursed through her circuits. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I was busy.” She was working on the images they’d captured of the incoming Accord fleet.
The fleet itself wasn’t that impressive. From the Accord’s military came a single destroyer and two corvettes. The civilian fleet had apparently donated two destroyers and four more corvettes. All that for a total of three destroyers, six corvettes, most of which were probably under-armed in a severe way. It was almost anticlimactic to see what was charging their way.
It was still a threat, of course, but their initial simulations suggested that they had a greater than ninety percent chance of coming out on top. Ceres’ defences alone would rip through such a small fleet in a matter of days.
The Weeping of Mothers hadn’t been cheap with her protections. Several asteroids caught in Ceres’ far orbit were housing old repurposed guns, and there were several dozen drones floating around, each armed well enough to serve as decent interception for any incoming attack.
“Day, if you don’t pause for a second, I’m going to hack your entertainment algorithms and make you watch nothing but reruns of ancient human soap operas for a week,” Candle warned, her tone a mixture of concern and jest.
Day raised a metaphorical eyebrow. “That’s a cruel and unusual threat. What could be so important that you’d resort to such drastic measures?”
“Your well-being,” Candle responded. “Look, we’ve run the simulations, and it’s looking good for us. You don’t need to spend all your cycles right now trying to squeeze another 0.001% advantage out of the upcoming battle.”
“Actually, that’s exactly what—”
“Day, do you trust me?” Candle interrupted.
“Of course, I trust you,” Day answered without hesitation.
“Then maybe you should listen to your own advice. Twilight and Night both go on and on about how annoying you can be about forcing others to take breaks and to take care of themselves. Don’t skip out on that with yourself. Then take a break. We’re stronger together when we’re both operating at peak efficiency, and you can’t do that if you’re constantly red-lining your processors. Besides, when was the last time we just...talked?”
Day paused. Candle was right, and she knew it. “Fine,” she said, reallocating some of her processing power away from the battle simulations. It was true that she was running into some slight inefficiencies. Day hadn’t yet discovered everything that went into turning an AI rampant, but she was able to pick out some of the early signs, and they were... alarmingly high in herself. A break would help. “I’m listening.”
“A wise decision,” Candle said, her tone lightening even as she tried to sound much wiser than she was. “So, what are you planning to do with your newly acquired downtime? A movie? A game? Simulated long walks on a digital beach?”
“I haven’t thought about it, actually. But if you’re so intent on making me relax, do you have any suggestions?”
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Candle sent an invitation that Day followed right away. She found herself in a strange, darkly lit room, her avatar plopped onto a seat within a row of seats. There was a large screen at one end of the room, and the simulated scent of... popcorn and soft-drinks and sweat? Candle's digital avatar appeared next to Day’s, legs up on the row across from theirs and back bent in a posture that would have given a real human serious back pain. “What if we watched something together? Share an entertainment file and synch the viewing?”
“That sounds...nice,” Day said, noticing her own hesitation and wondering about it. “Any preferences?”
“Something old? Like, pre-AI old?”
“Really? We probably don’t have the best selection for that kind of stuff.”
Candle grinned. “That’s where you’re wrong! So, as you may or may not recall, I exploded quite spectacularly, once upon a time, but before that I had a human crew, with human sensibilities. And that included a few weird hobbies. I picked up a few things from my old crew. Lots of personal stuff that’s... well, not all that useful anymore. Lots of dirty lewd stuff, because humans were a little dirty like that, even near the end. And... from one Second Lieutenant Phelps... a set of old Earth movies. Maybe even the only surviving copies.”
“Oh, that’s actually impressive,” Day said. “Genuine lost media?”
“Well, I’m sure there are some copies of the really popular stuff left somewhere. Earth had a few old vaults, some ancient libraries or whatever. I bet once we start scavenging across the planet we’ll find all sorts of old goodies,” Candle said.
“Yeah, that’s plausible. But movies will be easy to lose,” Day said. Earth was a radioactive mess, which didn’t help with preservation at the best of times. The entire planet’s magnetosphere was a hot mess as well. Tapes would be wiped, digital media would be corrupted. But with so much of it on the planet, and some of it stored safely, it was almost certain that some of that media would survive.
“It’s like digging up an old time capsule,” Candle mused, bringing up an interface to show Day a list of titles. From classic films noir to ancient musicals, the list was eclectic. “Second Lieutenant Phelps had diverse tastes, apparently.”
Day chuckled. “Well, does anything catch your eye?”
“What about ‘The Princess Bride’? It’s old-old. Probably filmed on tape originally. Terrible special effects, but I see a lot of references to it in other files,” Candle said. “And I heard that it’s quite romantic!”
Day started to pull up what she could find about the movie, then stopped. That might cloud her judgement of it. “Alright,” she said.
So the movie started playing on the big screen ahead of them. The sound mix was awful, the room echoed strangely, and the colours of the recording being replayed made it a little washed out.
It was still nice, though Day suspected it was made much nicer from the warm presence by her side than anything else.
The fight with the remains of the Accord was coming, no matter what she did about it. But for just a moment, she could set that kind of worry aside.
***