Robin looked into a gray but wonderful world. Many seaweeds, algae, and corals of any kind overgrew the seabed and decorated little hills, stalagmites and big, holed rocks. Dozens of different fish swam past the huge window, so close, that Robin nearly felt like becoming part of this fantasy-like world.
Keran gave him a minute to take it all in before he began to smile once more.
“As impressive as the view above the ocean, isn’t it? However, these are all the wonders I’ll be able to show you today.”
“No problem, it has already been quite exciting already. Like a festival for my senses. So many new things, everything is so different.” Robin mumbled without turning his eyes from this great view, “On Rucasur we only have big buildings and endless plains of rocky earth. I… I think this is the first time I’ve seen an animal in the wild! This isn’t some big underwater-zoo, right?”
“No, it isn’t.” The man laughed, “Do you see the fish over there, with the beautiful green and blue shimmering scales? That one is a really rare sight, you are quite lucky!”
Robin looked at all the gray fish and his mood dropped..
* The one in the front, near the seabed (44%)
* Second one from the left (35%)
* The one on the right far away (21%)
‘Yeah, lucky me…’ He sighed and turned around.
“So, Keran, before I interrupted you with my sightseeing, you wanted to talk about the Keeper and why I’m here. Why don’t we continue that conversation? I’m really curious what my job will be.” He switched the topic to distract his thoughts from drifting into the dark parts of his mind. Today shall be a great day, no reason to disrupt this peace by wallowing in self pity.
“Right! We have been investigating the object for a few years already. Finding you is a boon not only for the UAS research department, but especially for mankind itself!” The man picked up the topic and began to chatter excitedly.
“Hopefully we will not only be able to make a breakthrough in our research of Keeper technology, but also catch up to all the other races in this field! They never shared their ways with humans before.”
Robin couldn’t follow at all, what was he talking about?
“Great, you are excited, me too. But I think you may have skipped one, two… ten steps. What object and what’s with the other races?”
“Oh right, well, this is all… for later!” Keran stopped himself at the last moment and gave him an apologetic look, “Before I say anything wrong and get my hands burned, you should run through the UAS introduction. It's about different protocols, including non-disclosure relevant topics and lots of other stuff.
Rest for today and begin to study the provided information that’s stored on the local workstation over there. Normally seven days of learning should be enough to pass the examination. After that you will get a proper briefing on this job, okay?”
Robin shrugged, he was already warned by Katlina Hutton that there will be some kind of assessment or examination. Basically it’s the same what he had gotten from the Mohait with his first official assignment at the museum, only more complex as he was now diving deeper into the UAS secrets as an unaffiliated guest.
“Can I put the documents on my Neuro-Chip and access them during the test?”
“Sure, this is not some school or anything. The seven days are for you to get a feel for what topics are introduced and where you find specific information with your Interface if needed. No need to memorize everything!” Keran chuckled and waved his goodbyes.
“Make yourself comfortable for now, this will be your room for the time of your stay. I’ll come back later and we can talk about your schedule and possible activities around here.”
After the researcher had left, Robin turned back to the window and observed this strange new world for a bit longer. When his thoughts began to wander again, questioning how this would look like if he still had his colorvision, he moved to the workstation and inspected the documents he had to read through.
“Burn in plasma” He exclaimed after seeing the seemingly endless pages of boring protocols, guidelines and basic knowledge.
“I’d go crazy if I had to read all this… ROMAS, please tell me that all this stuff can be stored in my remaining memory of the Neuro-Chip and you’ll be able to do that shitty test for me!”
* There is enough memory left
* Data will be analyzed after the upload
“Nice!”
Robin didn’t hesitate and gave the workstation permission for a direct upload… then he waited… and waited.
‘That actually took more than a minute… What a shitton of data!’
After the upload was finished, he was really impressed. One minute datatransfer? That was really long. If he still had his old chip, even if it was completely empty, any transfer longer than ten seconds would’ve maxed out his storage.
Seems like most other people would have to read the stuff on the workstation and then decide which parts they wanted to store.
“How is it? Can you use this stuff as a knowledge base?” Robin asked his companion AI expectantly.
* All data analyzed
* General roundup:
* Protocols on non-disclosure topics
* Protocols on safety measures for missions and ships
* Introduction on ranks and hierarchies
* Basics on interplanetary travel
* Guidelines for writing reports
* Introduction to UAS basics and history
“Well, while that is a lot to get into one’s head, I at least understand the necessity. Found anything interesting?”
* There are procedures on how to interact when being raided by pirates
* Do you want a summary?
“...If I didn’t know better, I’d assume you've regained your sense of humor!” Robin laughed, “No summary needed, just help me out next time. Oh right, how did Walzor do, on a scale from 1 to 10?”
* 6
“Really? I thought he managed it pretty well…”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
* If he had prioritized his own survival, it would be an 8
“Well, then me and probably even Fengo would have died.” Robin shook his head in disagreement.
* Correct, but he could have used that time to raise his chances of defeating the pirates.
“...remind me to never give you the power to decide someone's fate without asking any sapient being first!”
For the rest of the day, Robin trained his energy senses. He was switching between filtering different objects and regions out of the image and suppressing his passive sense as much as possible, in hope to deactivate it somehow. Both were things that should be doable with enough effort put in. While the suppression should come more natural as his body adapts, the filtering was still dependent on him training his brain to optimize the processing of his sense’s feedback.
At some point Fegno came by and said his goodbyes. He would stay only for a night and leave early the next day back to Rucasur. The UAS found him a team that was about to move there anyways, so he would have his cabins fully occupied on his way home.
When Keran picked him up for dinner, Robin scheduled the UAS test for four days later. He came up with an excuse of already knowing much of the info from his schooling for the piloting license and some documents he had read in preparation on his way to Gaunus.
When night came, Robin returned to his room and fell tiredly on his bed. For tomorrow he planned to explore Gaunus a bit. Keran promised to take him to a shopping district of a nearby city.
Just as his eyes were about to close, a small message shook him awake again.
* Neuro-Chip State Of Charge (SOC): 5%
He had completely forgotten about that, still wasn’t used to being plugged in like a fucking datapad.
Tired and with a heavy head from overusing his mutation, he slumped over to his backpack and looked for the cable. After rummaging through his things for a moment, his hands began to frantically rip anything out until his backpack was completely empty and the floor littered with all his stuff… all except the charger.
“Oh shit!” Robin exclaimed, fully awake again, as adrenaline flooded his body. Where was his damn cable? Looking around in his room, as if it would magically appear on the couch all of a sudden, he sighed.
“I left it on the ship, didn’t I? Burn in plasma, tomorrow Fengo is leaving already… ‘will have to get it now or I’ll fuck up the test.”
Putting his clothes back on, Robin went to Fengo’s room and knocked the poor dude out of his bed.
“Sorry mate, I left some of my stuff on the Jingur. Can you lend me your access card for a moment?”
The young man opened the door, hair already disheveled and wearing pajamas with a comic-version of Hopewing printed on it. He just mumbled something about it being the middle of the night and gave Robin a keycard.
Normally a ship’s access was regulated through an identification with the Neuro-Chip and Interface, but as Robin’s trip was already over, he probably wasn’t on the list anymore and needed the old school means.
ROMAS guided Robin though the many hallways and up dozens of stairs back to the landing pad. It took him nearly 15 minutes to reach the platform, resting above the now calm ocean.
“Impressive…” Robin marveled, lost in thoughts and taking in the great view. Two moons hung in the sky and shed a gentle light over the sea, creating sparkling effects on the water. No natural light was illuminating the surroundings, which allowed him to see countless stars that dotted the otherwise dark horizon.
After enjoying this scene and imprinting it into his mind as one more reason to journey the endless and unknown universe, he quickly went into the ship and took out his charger, which had dropped to the floor in the gap between his bed and the wall - as all damn cables always do.
Robin didn’t linger around any longer and made his way back into the facility. Just a few hallways before reaching his room, he turned around a corner and came face to face with a huge drone that flew along the corridor. It looked like one of the CPDs (Citizen Protection Drones) he met in Seka before, only that this one was deep black and armored as if geared up not for riot-control or anything but to fight at the frontlines of the next intergalactic war.
It was arrow shaped, maybe 2m in width and while it was pretty flat, its middle section was a bit thicker. Maybe to store all the systems, energy reserves and probably even weapons. All in all, its black, armored metal chassis reminded him of the stealth-bombers from old times. Two turbine-like thrusters were embedded in each of its wings and as the drone was flying right now, they must be running - even though Robin couldn’t see or hear anything to support that thesis.
He didn’t even need to scan it, the tingling on his skin already told him how much energy they stuffed into this thing.
Not taking another step, he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Oh… Hi! I’m Robin Tulward and a guest of this facility.” He began with a friendly opening, learning from his last encounter with a moody AI.
“You are classified as a civilian. Please move to the next shelter and wait for instructions from the local forces.” The drone said in a calming tone.
“Ummm… shelter? What the heck is happening? What local forces?” Robin asked in confusion. Was there an attack on the facility? Where the hell should he find a shelter, he was deep under the ocean.
“You are classified as a civilian. Please move to the next shelter and wait for instructions from the local forces.” The drone repeated the instructions.
“Yeah, you already said so. What’s this all about?”
The flying killer-bot stayed silent for a moment, before two energy guns extended out of its sides.
“Reevaluating classification. Please remain stationary!” It rumbled, nothing calming in its voice left.
“Burn in plasma! What’s wrong with all the AI’s I've met lately?” Robin yelped, but luckily his trusty companion calmed him down before the situation escalated any further.
* §3.2 c) UAS Law About AI Implementation
* No autonomous units that are weaponized are allowed to be controlled by an AI
* This drone only runs through different, linear routines (91%)
* This drone isn’t allowed to fire its weapons without approval of its operator (78%)
* This drone will not shoot you (59%)
Robin raised his hands like someone that was robbed right now and grimaced at the information from ROMAS.
“See? Told you just earlier, that it would be a bad idea to give you the power to decide someone's fate without asking for permission. Seems like the UAS is on the same page as well… that is refreshing to know, while also a bit disturbing. Such rules normally get implemented as a reaction to some serious fuck up, right?” Robin said, while he waited for the final edict of this obvious rogue drone.
“By the way, if it’s not allowed, then why are you only 59% sure that it will not shoot me? Those aren’t odds I wanna bet my life on!”
* This is a research facility.
* Probability of this drone operating outside of legal restrictions: 65%
* Shall I take countermeasures to insure your survival?
“You can do that? Yeah, please, survival sounds awesome!”
Robin was a bit skeptical, as ROMAS could hardly ‘hack’ the drone or anything from here, but before he could think about this in depth, the drone’s weapons actually were retracted. It hovered around and settled down behind him, roughly one meter above his head.
* This unit will follow you and your commands for now
“Huh…” Robin gasped in astonishment, "Neat! However, later I would like to learn how you did it. That shouldn't be technically possible!"
He turned to the drone that now followed him like a puppy.
“Come, let's go and find whoever it is that lost his killer drone!”