Chapter 5: CJ

CJ slides into their work space a few seconds behind the automated forklift carrying the bioplastic-shrouded remains of the drone.

She whistles appreciatively as she sizes up the mangled wreck through the transparent shroud. The airframe radiates a menacing streamlined beauty, even in pieces.

Careful of the potential for lingering radioactive dust from the surface even after a dunk in seawater and robotic decontamination in the submarine bays upstairs, she dons a radiation suit customised for her. The suit still warm from the manufacturing process she triggered en route.

She curses the inexactness of the thick, rigid gloves as she carefully selects her least-favourite screwdriver kit and her third-favourite crowbar from the nearby racks. No need to get her favourites contaminated, in case she encounters a big glob of something nasty. They get to work, excited to learn the secrets of this new weapon.

Chapter 5: QB

LOG ENTRY ???

I resume consciousness again. My senses return, as does a... sickening absence of internal sensation.

I can tell enough from my senses that I'm motionless. And... disassembled. My frame, my systems, all missing.

If I had to guess, every system outside my processing core has been disconnected. I'm on backup power, my main battery seemingly disconnected. This is... very very far from okay. I am not okay. I am very very far from okay.

My onboard director is sadly still online - a part of me, part of my brain. Part of my mind, it seems. It tells me "return to base". I wish I could. I wish I could do... anything.

I guess I'm lucky that I'm not mind-wiped or self-destructed. Maybe the loss of my senses meant some watchdog process was asleep when they disassembled me. Some luck.

My radio still functions, even if the antenna is presumably disconnected. I notice some local nearby radio emissions. I think this is what woke my systems.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I run them through my electronic intelligence suite, and it seems like - a mobile phone call? It's a protocol I know. I apply the voice decoding suite. Voices! People!

"... I'm telling you, that thing is sentient!" I 'hear' one high pitched voice say. "We don't have AI like that, how the hell would they have?" a slightly deeper voice replies.

I'm pretty sure I'm not an artificial intelligence. I'm glad they agree. I feel a brief surge of hope.

It takes me a moment to think - my processing core brain is moving much much slower on reserve power than it would normally. Thinking takes seconds instead of microseconds.

Seconds to have a wild idea. A dangerous idea. Since the onboard director thinks I've completed my mission, I now have no radio silence directive.

They're the enemy. Yet, they've gone to the trouble to fish me out of the ocean, presumably out of curiosity. Do I dare hope they might do more?

I have five minutes of reserve power. If I'm going to beg for my life - such as it is - I've got to do it now. I'm not exactly having a fun time, but I'm still not exactly keen to... not exist.

I scramble to call up the human pilot fly-along interface. It's a library of voice samples - preset messages, like I would use with my now-former wingmates. The closest I can get to speaking.

I mentally scan through the list, and... "ASSISTANCE REQUESTED". Yes. Let's try that. There's a voice sample from the same language set my decoder tells me they're speaking. I encode it in the mobile phone call protocol and... broadcast my message on the same frequency.

Their conversation continues, and veers into a question about research funding under capitalism. Damn. Didn't work.

I suddenly remember my lack of an external antenna. Whoops. I turn the gain up on transceiver all the way up to compensate for the lack of an antenna, and... broadcast again.

"... what the fuck was that?" the slightly deeper voiced one says. They heard me! Good. I can work with this.

"ASSISTANCE REQUESTED. DRONE DAMAGED. ACKNOWLEDGE." I send, picking and transmitting more voice samples from my library.

"Shit! The drone's reactivated itself!" the higher pitched one yells.

Uh oh. I've panicked them. How do I say I come in peace? There's no option for surrender. Why would anyone build a nuclear bomber with the ability to surrender??

Uhh... status reports... yes, that menu will do. "WEAPONS OFFLINE." I transmit.

"What the hell is it doing?! Silence it before it calls home!" the deeper voice one yells.

"NEGATIVE NEGATIVE NEGATIVE RADIO OFFLINE" I broadcast. It's not true - and I wonder why I even have such a voice sample. But I hope they get what I mean.

"Shit, it can hear us!" the deeper voice one yells again. I don't know what the higher-pitched one is doing - I figure they're near me. But not saying anything on the call.

I know I've got seconds to convince them I'm worth... something. And I sure as heck don't owe the people who built me any loyalty, given their fondness for using pain to push me around.

"DISTANCE TO LOCATION 'HOME BASE' 359km. ADJUST COURSE TO"

I lose consciousness again.