CHAPTER 55: INTERIOR OF THE SUPERCARRIER

The hallways of E’s ship were very different from the simple and plain ones from Abyssal. For starters, it contains railings on both sides of walls and an automated walkway going both sides of the hallway. There was no need to walk as the conveyor belt like walkways would just move forward for you. As one goes through the hallways, one will cross paths to sets of fire extinguishers, first-aid kits and oxygen kits hung up on the walls at the intervals of the path. 

Another thing about E’s hallways that was different from Abyssal was that it was considerably large and long. To put it short, the place was like a labyrinth. There were signs everywhere, letting people know where to go. Unlike Abyssal’s hallway, which is just a straight path, E’s hallway branches out to multiple areas. The place also looked to have a bit of dirt, oil and scratches all over the paths, making it have the feel of being in use— very different from the sparkling brand new look that Abyssal have. It also had a futuristic look to it, though that can be said for a lot of things in space.

In this hallway, Abyssal has come across the path of several large rotating doors leading to important parts of the ship. She also saw a few drones moving about, carrying cargo or patrolling the hallways. The drones looked tough and modern, and were probably far more advanced than the drones Abyssal currently had.

Abyssal, E, Kuon and Meica had been standing on the automated walkway for quite some time now. They had taken many turns within this carrier. It if wasn’t for Abyssal mapping out the area, she would probably have no idea how to get back to her ship. All that Abyssal knew was that she was currently heading deeper into the ship.

“Um, a little question,” Abyssal voiced out during her little tour.

“Hmm? What?” E turned her head around.

“I was just wondering if you were fine with letting two cores, such as ourselves, walk so freely on your ship. I don’t know, shouldn’t there be more… security?” Abyssal looked around her. Other than the usual camera’s the place seemed rather unguarded.

“Of course I’m fine with it. I’ll let you know that I take security matters in this ship very seriously and I am fully aware of what you two are capable of,” E said with confidence. She folded her arms and gave the two a smile that was just as confident.

“Your casual attitude suggests otherwise,” Kuon commented.

“Believe me when I say I have this under control,” E said before pointing towards one of the cameras in the hallway. 

“I have cameras all over the place. Every single footage and feed is being streamed through my consciousness. I see everything and anything going on inside me. There is nothing that escapes my 'eyes'.”

E then clapped her hands twice. As she did so, a segment of the wall opened up and some super sci-fi looking laser turret appeared. 

“If something were to happen…” E said before pointing at Kuon and Abyssal with the gesture of a finger gun. “Bam! Four hundred and twenty bullet holes in your body. The defence system even comes with small amounts of nanomachines that will assimilate the targets. Machines will be assimilated and humans will turn into soup.”

“I see… That’s pretty amazing...” Abyssal replied after a slight pause.

“I’ve got other security measures as well and I’m not afraid of using it so no funny stuff from either of you, alright? Of course, I'm not going to tell you about it. Let’s just say, I’ll turn you two into scrap parts before you could even say burgers.”

‘Why burgers?’

“Go-got it,” Abyssal gave E a thumbs up. Her thumbs up, however, was just her drone opening the grips of her arms. Once she did so, she then moved nearer to Kuon.

“Hey hey, is what she said true? Will humans really turn to soup if we tried to assimilate them?” Abyssal asked quietly.

"It's obviously an exaggeration, Master. It's not to the point where biological components will be turned to soup, but the results are still pretty devastating. Like being eaten by millions of tiny locusts. Death is usually within minutes unless protected by some sort of special equipment," Kuon replied.

'Death within minutes? Like being eaten by locusts? You might as well be soup!' Abyssal shuddered at the thought of being swarmed by tiny robots eating her from both outside and inside.

Abyssal shook her head and tried to get rid of that grotesque image out of her mind. She looked towards the camera for a second and then towards the girl in front of her. 

"Say, you are pretty amazing, huh. I'm surprised you could multitask like that so easily, E. Seeing everything in this huge place all at once and doing it constantly too. I could barely keep an eye with one video without getting bored within a few hours."

"Huh?" E replied with a confused look.

"Huh?" And so did Abyssal.

Kuon, on the other hand, gave Abyssal a blank stare.

‘Did I say something wrong?’ Abyssal asked herself internally.

"You… are you that weak of a core? You can even barely process one camera feed at a time?" 

"Huh? No, of course not! I can process lots of things at once too!" Abyssal replied.

'Of course, Abby is the one who does all the processing and calculating. I just give her the orders.' 

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"Is that so…" E gave Abyssal a sly grin.

"Wh-what?"

"Nothing. I'm just wondering how a core such as yourself has such a weak logical processor. Your emotional processor got to be strong. You have quite the display of emotions, after all."

"Huh? Logical processor? What do you mean?"

'Also, my processing ain't weak! I'll let you know I can compute things much faster than Kuon!'

"Hmm? You should know, right? Every core has two different processors, one for consciousness, emotions and one for processing information, computation. I guess a human would call it having a computer in your pockets. Though we would be the computers, in this case, gahaha," E replied.

'Logical… emotional… is she referring to Abby and me?'

"Then the feed for all of your cameras? You said everything goes through your consciousness?" Abyssal asked.

"Ah? Did I say that? My bad, I didn’t mean that literally. I mean if I push all of that information through my emotional processor, I’ll be bored to death. I mean, that’s the reason why all cores have the logical and emotional circuit separated in the first place, right? So we cores don’t go insane having to live in milliseconds. That would suck, my captain would be talking to me in weird soundwaves.”

“Right? That’s what I meant, hahaha…” Abyssal gave a sheepish laugh.

“Well, if you put it that way, I could at least monitor two or three video feeds at the same time though. So I guess I’m still the stronger core?” E gave another grin.

‘This kid… I feel like she’s having the wrong idea about myself… Not going to bother about it, I guess… Still, every core has a separate logical and emotional processor, huh. That’s news to me… Does that mean that everyone has their own Abby?’ Abyssal asked herself. 

‘Maybe…’

Abyssal moved closer to Kuon. “Hey, what’s your logical processor like, by the way?”

“Pardon me?”

“You know, your other-self. Mine’s kinda hard to deal with, she likes to talk back to me and do all these annoying things on her own, sometimes not even following my orders.”

“My apologies, master. I’m afraid I haven’t a clue as to what you are speaking about,” Kuon gave Abyssal a respectful bow.

“Didn’t you hear what she said? Don’t you have a logical and emotional processor too? I’m just asking what kind of personality your logical one has.”

Abyssal must have said something weird as Kuon gave an even more confused look towards Abyssal. Kuon eventually gave a look like she understood what Abyssal was saying, though the confused look was replaced with a worried one.

“Master… Logical processors… don’t have personalities. That’s akin to asking if my body has a mind of its own. It simply does not. Have you been damaged in the previous fight? Perhaps you should run self-diagnostics,” said Kuon.

‘Eh..?’

Abyssal was about to ask Kuon another question when suddenly a small ray of light entered her ‘eyes’. It must have been seen by the others as they soon turned their attention to it. It was a large metallic door that was currently halfway opened. Behind the door was the scenery of grassy fields with trees under a nice sky with good weather. There were benches and a large fountain in the middle of the field.

It was a park.

“We are here, girls,” E said out loud as she walked through the metallic entrance. 

Kuon gave Abyssal a nod before moving through the gate itself. Abyssal, a little bit stunned about what Kuon mentioned, decided to just push the thoughts to the back of her mind for now.

‘I’ll deal with it later,’ she thought to herself as she moved through the gate to see what was beyond.

Her imaginary jaws dropped open as she observed the marvel. It was some sort of living residential area of sorts— complete with several tall buildings and landmarks. Towards the skies, she could see sunlight and the clouds moving around. The skies were definitely artificial, but it looked almost like the real thing.

She was currently in the park where she could see a bunch of children running around and a few adults wearing engineer-like clothing, eating by the fountain or underneath a tree. Near the entrance of the area were a few tough-looking guards wearing military uniforms, standing watch alongside a few humanoid looking drones.

‘Are these… actual humans? This ship has a crew?’ Abyssal thought to herself.

The children in the park must have spotted E as the lot of them quickly came running towards her. E was quickly surrounded by children of all ages and gender. Most of them were shorter than her, but a few of them looked to be around the same age. They hugged her knees and called out to her. All of them seemed to be quite happy to see her. Each one of them talked at the same time which ended up in a jumbled mess of words.

“Enty! You’re back!”

“Enty, Enty! Are you done with your job?”

“Hey Enty, come play with us!”

“Hey! Ya promised snacks, where are they?”

“What’s with all the jumps, Enty? Teachers were really mad about the fact that we had to go to the shelters all day!”

“Heya guys… I’m glad to see ya all, but I’m still on-duty here.”

The kids ignored her words and continued to engage with her, talking about all sorts of topics like what they did in class and other kids stuff. They all seemed to like E very much as if treating E as one of their own. E couldn’t talk her way through the kids and just smiled wryly at the children. Though some of the kids were a little bit naughty— one small boy went over to her back and flipped her skirt.

‘Ah, it’s white,’ Abyssal mumbled to herself.

E quickly covered up her private parts before starting to chase after the little boy who had started running away. The other kids started running with him as well, letting out their own laughs. Some of them held E by her hand in order to prevent her from running.

“Arghh! You guys are in it together, aren’t you? Oi! Come here, you little twerps!” shouted E as she started to chase them, dragging the kids who held her along with her.

“So she’s good with kids, huh. Well, kids get along with each other and stuff,” Abyssal muttered as she watched this surreal scene.

It was at this moment that Kuon called out. “Um, master. We’ve encountered a problem.”

“What?” Abyssal turned around. “Ack!”

Over to Meica’s side were a few children surrounding her. Kuon, who was supposedly carrying Meica, was pushed away by the curious kids.

“Hey, hey, look at her. Big kitty people,” one of the children, a girl, said out to the other kids. She was pulling Meica’s tail.

“Look at her ears! They are so soft!” Another girl spoke out, touching Meica’s feline ears.

“It’s true, it’s true!” Another kid spoke out, also touching her ears.

“Uuuu….Nekomi… not kitty....” Meica who was still spacesick, let out a groan as she tried her best to push the kids away. However, this attempt backfired on her as they thought she was playing around with them. This caused the kids to start touching Meica more aggressively. Some of them even started patting her tummy like one would do a real cat.

“Ah ah ah! Hang in there Meica! I’m coming!” Abyssal yelled out as she headed towards the human-sized cat.