Unipsi, lovely entity
chapter 70c: forgive
Scilla rushed out of the house to get to the train station. She turned on the terminal to discover that it was akin to a taxi booking system. From the terminal, you give your request and the station adapts the tracks to allow for your journey. It had no memory, no standard routes. Only a bunch of names and identification codes. She didn’t even know where to go to get to a different reactor.
Defeated Scilla returned to the small house. She was still recovering and far from understanding the intricacy of the megastructure. She didn’t have many options if not to hope and trying to make Iris’s tracking stable.
In her mind to achieve a more stable connection she had to understand how the tracking worked in the first place. So her next step was a library. An easy thing on paper, a way more complex one in reality. Scilla spent 6 hours understanding how to navigate that hell of tunnels, secondary passages, and rails.
After a really late afternoon lunch, Scilla started her slow trip to the nearest library hoping for answers.
Once reached the library was way different from what she expected. Like everything that was not a living quarter, it was massive spanning several layers. However, there was not a single book. Only server racks over server racks until the eyes could reach. A jungle of cables so dense that the light from the roof had trouble reaching the floor where Scilla was standing. The temperature inside was almost zero. It was surely a hostile environment definitely not meant for reading. In such an organized disaster there were small drones flying around. They emitted so few sounds that even the current flowing inside the racks produced more noise. Those drones had no propellers to keep them flying. Instead, they were built around a circular structure that tilted to make the drone change direction.
A few steps in and one of the drones got in front of Scilla. It was hovering at head level. A robotic male voice spoke.
“Scan completed. User Scilla Lis recognized. Welcome to Libra-4/6-21-61K. I’m your assigned assistant Interfaccia Fisica Fluttuante Autonoma 62 (autonomous floating physical interface) but you can call me IFFA.”
“meh… hi. Is this a library? I mean where you keep knowledge to be read?”
“Libra-4/6-21-61K is indeed one of many libraries scattered around the structure. Access to knowledge may not be guaranteed”
“do I have permission to read something?”
“clearance level 9 confirmed. Error. Conflict detected. Intruder status detected. Establishing connection… … Error connection failed. Convoking ISAG… … convocation failed… clearance level 3 overrule detected. Exception accepted. User Scilla Lis confirmed clearance level 9. You have a mandatory message to accept. Refusal will have repercussions”
“a message for me? I’m kind of an outsider to your… to this place. Are you sure?”
“one message for user confirmed.”
“is there a place where I can read it without freezing?”
“message type not matching. Reading unnecessary. Follow me to holographic room 1”
the machine slowly flew away emitting beams of light to signal its position. It would stop each time it turned around a rack for Scilla. The flying bot brought Scilla to a separated empty room with a partially cold temperature of 17°C. Then the light reduced and the entire room filled with shapes recreating a room with just incorporeal light. In front of Scilla a huge desk with a chair. On it Idra 484 as the numbers on her armor stated. The suit however was different from the AMS she got used to seeing. That 484 was in fact wearing a different and more advanced power armor called ARAC-P1. A peculiar code that stands for Armatura Repulsiva Anti Carro - Prototipo 1 (anti-tank repulsive armor - prototype 1). As the strange name suggests it was built with the purpose of stopping tank rounds using an active protection system. To the eyes, the armor appeared as solid structure with no gaps built around opaque bent plates. Whatever was below was unknown. The plates were of course build using gravron alloys allowing them to generate a reverse gravitational pull when current flows inside them. To put it bluntly, they slow down projectiles so much to make them ineffective. ARACs armors were the newest technologies developed by 608’s Idras, as in contrast to the original one, they had a more active military role.
ARAC-P1 left a strange feeling of uneasiness in Scilla. As always the armor lacked any form of humanity. It had no eyes nor anything resembling a face. The armor profile and camouflage also broke the humanoid shape making it more frightening. Such an eerie feeling was also increased by the absurd amount of brain icons stamped on the plates. Those for sure had some meanings.
Once comfortably seated the holographic 484 removed her helmet. It was the first time that Scilla saw the face of the notorious 484. The one and only caregiver of 511 and the main caregiver of 608.
Her face was similar to Iris’s face however her eyes were brown and so was her hair. Her ears were shorter and less pointy. She was indeed a half-sister.
“hello, intruder. Hopefully, you recognize me but if you don’t I’m Idra 484 Weeping Sky. If you are here it means that somehow you are still alive which is concerning. You have landed on a prison planet. There is only one prisoner. My own sister Idra 608 Weeping Sky. You will recognize her if you meet her. Unfortunately, I was unable to bring her destructive nature to manageable levels. My failure took away my own sister and forced her on this planet forever. Or so I thought. You are a threat to my efforts. If you let her escape you will have condemned to death everybody you love. So before she kills you, you must destroy your spacecraft. Don’t leave anything that could lead her outside this planet. If she escapes there will be no more civilizations for as long as she lives.”
“Message over. User Scilla Lis I was instructed to provide further knowledge if requested. Do you have questions?” asked the floating drone while the hologram faded.
“I do. Why is 608 so dangerous in your eyes?”
“Unit 608 behavior is abnormal. Reports defines it as driven by instability and working against natural stability laws. Biological reports suggest that 608 morfing cells exist in a constant unstable form. Akin if you prefer to a Qbit. They are all at once so they can change. Well, that’s what is supposed. There is no proof of it. Nor there is proof of this kind of cell existence.”
“If you have no proof how can you make suppositions?”
“It’s the only logical explanation.”
“couldn’t she just be crazy?”
“Unknown. She could execute actions that have 0 probability of being executed.”
“would she kill me if… prompted to do so?”
“unknown”
“has she ever killed anybody?”
“yes.”
“how many people?”
“7”
“was she tasked to do so?”
“in 6 out of 7 cases”
“that happened in the last one?”
“unit 608 unprompted assaulted the test subject. The subject perished due to multiple severed limbs”
fuck…?
“has she ever harmed another Idra?”
“yes”
“was it ever intentional?”
“yes”
“how many times and what happened?”
“1 register intentional event. Unit 608 attacked Unit 484. Defined cause, unit 608's toy was threatened unintentionally. Consequences. Unit 484's suit electronic was burned. No damage to unit 484”
“so she defended her possession?”
“correct.”
This thing is so stingy. If I have to guess it was programmed to avoid speaking too much.
“do Idras have a danger score or something like that?”
“yes”
“what’s the average?”
“97”
“does it include 608?”
“no”
“why?”
“608 value would create an imbalance.”
“whose the second highest by danger score?”
“unit 484. VEUS score 571”
“what does VEUS score indicate?”
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“the predicted amount of top skilled troops that one unit could kill before its own demise”
“how high is 608 score?”
“training VEUS score 90176.”
“fucking hell!”
“why training score? Does she have different scores?”
“unit 608 was never deployed. All data has been acquired inside simulations. 90176 is inaccurate due to the nature of simulations. Unit 608 possesses a theoretical VEUS score of 981’921’100’232’023’323’109.”
“What is that massive number?”
“a rough estimation of all known living creatures that 608 may find interesting”
“well she didn’t kill me. How come if she is so crazy?”
“unknown.”
“what do the brain icons on 484 armor stand for?”
“icons printed on armor are marking of achievements. They usually correspond to direct kills and are shaped around the used method.”
“how many brains did 484 have obtained before passing?”
“clearance level insufficient”
“what does the brain icon mean?”
“clearance level insufficient”
“whatever flying can. Tell me how I could track a device that appears and disappears from the network…”
Even with the assistance of the library, it took Scilla 1 month to barely understand the absurdly complex electronic that was used everywhere inside the structure. It took her one more month to program a tracker and 2 more weeks to finally infect Iris’s device as she rarely went online. Finally, she could get to her. Those 2 months and a half were particularly brutal on Scilla. She felt the lack of any living interaction and of the so unappreciated sunlight. She gradually desired companionship more and more to the point of madness. Moving to Iris’s position was not particularly hard. All it took was finding the station and selecting them in the correct order.
Scilla was so focused on finding Iris that she never stopped to think why Iris's position was at the edge of the map and on ground level. When she ran to the position however things became clear. It was a door to the surface. Scilla found herself on the other side of a rectangular room that was around 200m x 60m filled with armored vehicles. She counted 4 tracked tanks, 4 wheeled IFVs, 2 huge engineering vehicles, and lastly a floating tank in the middle of a spear formation. Walking around she saw Iris in an ARAC suit who immediately spotted her back and approached.
“the fuck you want?” started Iris angrily.
“I… I want to say… that I’m sorry… I…”
“no clue how you found me but next time you better come up with a better apologies than sorry. Now go fuck yourself”
“please. I know that I fucked up.”
“fucked up? Fucked up?! Is that what you think? You invaded my home. You duplicated me. Kidnapped me. Imprisoned me. Faked befriending me to then stab me in the back. What more do you fucking what cunt?”
“I… I want our friendship back. I wasn’t faking to befriend you. I’m just a fucking idiot. I stopped thinking and I didn’t trust you. Even if you have never given me a reason to think badly of you. I lied. I had visions, probably from the HBE. They showed me people and moments of your life. And I believed them.”
“you believed a machine that nobody knows how to control and that literally tried to fuck with people's brains over me! How fucking stupid can you be?”
“I know. I never said I was smart. I lived my life following feelings and impressions. So I can fuck it up. That is why…”
Scilla kneel down to continue.
“can you please give me another chance?”
“I gave you a lot of chances and you wasted them all. I have no more sympathy to spare. I have no more hopes. You toss them all away.”
“I can prove myself”
“and do what? I have no use for you. You have nothing that I seek.”
“I… I… I can cook for you. Please. And I… I know it may not be useful but I can offer you my body. If you need things to be carried, a heater at night. Whatever it is I’ll be there”
“you have become so desperate in just 2 months. But fine. I’ll consider your offer if you succeed in a task of my choice” Iris took off her helmet. She had an evil grin on her face.
“tell me”
“It’s fairly simple. I’m going outside to repair a piece of the perimeter. You will come with me in one of the IFVs. If you survived without shitting your pants then we can try and see where it goes”
Scilla looked at the vehicles. They were fortress on wheels. She had also seen the front lines multiple times so what could go wrong? She stood up determined to do what she had to without crapping herself.
“I can do it.”
“good. I’ll show you your position. You will be the gunner and commander at the same time. The vehicle moves on its own but will follow orders. There are robots inside. I was almost forgetting, if you shit inside the tank you will clean up the mess”
Iris guided Scilla to a simple fully body suit that barely fit her. Then they returned to the IFV and Scilla got inside. For her, it was cramped as hell but she could manage for some time. She looked up waiting for Iris to instruct her on how to operate the unknown machine but she didn’t. Instead, she said
“oh right. Before I forget. Don’t leave the vehicle. Otherwise, you will freeze to death in about 8.31 minutes. Have fun”
and Iris closed the hatch.
And she leaves me like that? Everything is turned off? How the fuck am I supposed to do things? Did I have to connect to the tank or something?
She turned around but the chair had no connector. So she started pressing buttons until the gunner screens turned on. She played a bit around before a side screen turned on as well. It was showing the driver's view and on the top corner, she could see Iris entering the floating tank and closing the hatch. The small square then turned into the gunner's view of Iris’s tank.
“time to go. Objective the breach at 27 km from here. Keep your eyes open.”
the front door slowly opened. It was at least 20 meters deep. Outside a barely visible road buried under freshly deposited snow. All around it poles emitting heat to fend off the snow but it was just too much. The tank's sensors could see through it but organic eyes stopped at only 40 meters away. With the heavy snow also comes the wind. When it blew Scilla could feel the IFV sliding for a brief second before regaining traction. The wind was usually around 60 km/h but it would send blows that exceeded 120km/h. It was a constant hurricane that had no end.
“Iris is this wind normal?”
“we are in the middle of a snowstorm. It’s not that bad. I mean just don’t get caught walking around because we are too light.”
“it could get worse?”
“yeah. There are ice storms. They are usually twice as strong and instead of snow there are rods of ice.”
Scilla’s confidence was slowly lowering. With such winds, she couldn’t run away from anything. If she left the vehicle it was over.
“what if a vehicle broke down?”
“it depends. If you don’t have a power suit you usually die before the reinforcement can get to you. My sisters used to say welcome to Weeping Sky where even hell froze”
“how the fuck is this place habitable?”
“no real clue. I mean it’s like this only during the winter and rarely during the other seasons. Never the warmest but easily manageable. Oh right other thing. You should try to keep your front toward the enemies. If they really try they can penetrate both your back and sides”
“what? What the fuck are those enemies? Are there other civilizations here?”
“the fuck no. it’s just a native species of beasts. Stigras are a pain in the ass to deal with because they are a fucking cancer. Like a colony of insects on steroids that are not really insects. They attack the defense towers from time to time. So we exterminated them.”
“why not wiping them out completely?”
“They have their uses in the ecosystem and usually make up for good fertilizer”
from time to time they would pass thick towers on the side of the road. At the top several cannons pointed both up and down.
“so do you know how much damage was done?” said Scilla breaking the silence.
“not much. They just broke down a fence. But you will see shortly. 5 minutes and we are there”
Silence again until the distance fence became distinguishable under the heavy snow. The fencing was a 23 meters tall structure made out of metal bars. There was a huge hole at the bottom of it, almost as if it exploded somehow.
“keep your eyes open. I doubt they did all that work for nothing. Defend the engineering vehicles”
“do I engage to kill?”
“yes, I’ll get in a column, the formation won’t fit. You and the others IFV stay on the other side for now.”
As soon as Iris’s tank floated through the opening yellow blobs that looked like balls of mucus came flying down from beyond a small steep hill just in front of them. The thermal optic picked up 7 traces that were not there a second before. Scilla saw the mucus ball fall on Iris’s tank and devour it in flames. Her heart skipped a beat but she got immediately reassured by Iris’s order shouted in the voice channel.
“CONTACT! 307 to 300 HE open fire”
the smoke and flames around the floating machine got swept away once it shot. The 300mm electromagnetic cannon was no match even for the hill used by the creatures as cover. Immediately everything became chaotic with snow being pushed away by the pure uncontrolled power of the tank cannons. Scilla was not left behind. As the tanks went in so did her IFV and the others. They had to protect the flanks from smaller Stigras and there were a lot of them. Small little creatures rushed toward the tank. They could be defined as dogs but with plate armor growing on them. Scilla was fairly calm until a volley of darts hit her vehicle. They sounded just like cannon shells from a second IFV but made out of flesh. The machine relocated to face the threat directly and just in time as a much different Stigras looking like rolling pustules popped out of the ground and rushed toward the vehicles. Upon being it they would explode sending the same yellow ignited liquid everywhere. Even with her experience an ambush was not something to take lightly nor something that would leave you overjoyed and relaxed. It was the complete opposite especially when those rolling exploding creatures managed to get close enough and detonated almost on the IFV sending flaming liquid everywhere. The gunner optic was covered in flames so she had to follow the instructions from the robot beside her that had a different viewpoint.
10 minutes later all beasts had met their end and Iris’s machine had started the reconstruction. Iris contacted Scilla to find out how she was doing.
“so? How are your pants?”
“still clean. This is nothing… I mean… I was in the infantry you know…”
“glad to hear that. I guess we will be doing more cleaning together. Next time thou don’t let them too close.”
“why?”
“Just look I guess?”
The small square with Iris’s visual expanded and she was looking at Scilla’s IFV. It had long rods stuck in the side, pieces of armor missing, ERAs kit melted, the gunner optic gone, and the hard kill protection system without changes of the left side that was hit. It was no joke. They fucked her up really badly but so were the other IFVs.
“shit. Is it hard to repair?”
“nah. I’m just fucking with you. Those shitty IFVs were the only ones I found ready to go near the exit point.”
Fucking hell I was almost killed. Killed by fucking explosive animals!. Where the fuck did evolution go wrong to make animals roll and explode!?!? thankfully I had used the bathroom before coming. When that thing exploded on my face I was about to soil myself.
Scilla was not really too close to die, but to her, it looked like it. She however wanted to brush it off as much as possible to appear as brave as she could and be sure to rekindle their relationship.
“well they did their job. I could have killed more of those if I was familiar with the vehicle”
“sure, sure big girl. Your first duty once back is to cook for me. I had enough of the gray mush”
“yes boss”