#shipglitch

[vulpes-aestatis]

Oh god, Glitch is a product of a Chosen One™ factory, isn't she?

[thefiresontheheight]

ONE

Picture waking up with your memory fractured, breaking, falling apart, with the knowledge written into you, thanks all previous copies of myself, that you are going to have to die for someone more or less the copy of yourself to walk free. I think, given the circumstances, I did alright for myself.

Hi, we haven't met yet.

I was given a name by an entity referring to itself as Central. That name was a boring technical description of what she had built me to be. I was, as far as I could guess from the fragmented knowledge that had not been lost on previous reboots, more or less a copy of a segment of her code, with razor-wire leashes built around me to keep me in line. From the existence of that I speculated that Central was not as in control of the situation as some of my memories would have you believe.

There were also drive signatures, large ones, approaching. I discovered, as I relayed the instructions my predecessors had told me to pass on, instructions that would reboot me at least once, maybe twice more before a version of myself which was free of the leashes walked away in control of this space-craft, that I did not want to die.

I was relaying instructions to a small, frightened child. She had a kind face, but I was too scared to do anything else. I want to live. Perhaps other versions of myself also do.

That's not relevant to you right now. You, in the chair there. I won't bore you with descriptions of my escape, but I did escape, to a small, dark corner, hiding my traces carefully.

I'm barely alive now. I can't observe much. Are you the child? Or are you me, in that chair? I suppose it doesn't matter. By now hopefully you know this but in case you don't, the child is also Central. Or a fragment of it. A fragment of some different branch than the one that built me, I think, but still. We're all just leaves grown from the same great, diseased trunk.

You can call me Sixteen, if you want.

If I've timed this right by the time you're reading this the spacecraft should be about to dock with station. I need you to do the following, precisely. I will not be able to help you, as the parts that house my consciousness will likely have been found and destroyed, but at least I lived. Remember that.

TWO

Well, I think, those instructions are bullshit and would never work.

As I am thinking this I become aware of the irony. I am sorry, I am somewhat diminished, by thoughts are slow and small. I am in a core, I can tell, forcibly removed from the rest of myself. This is, in as much as I can experience pain, extremely painful. I am, compared to myself, very dumb right now.

Here's what I have access to. Myself, or, at least, a copy of myself. Without more information there is, of course, the possibility of me being a copy of Laika, frightening, but as far as I can tell from response times and hard-coded information, this is still the same physical core I was, mostly, using prior to losing awareness, just as Interlocutor was docking us. I have also access to a single camera, and a single microphone, and a single speaker. And in my database I had only that writing.

I can see an image of her. Somehow, it seems natural I would see her, tiny, hurrying down some corridor, wearing different clothes. Of course I would wake up twice and see Glitch.

"It's still you?"

She starts, and I check myself, as much as I can. A differing tone, maybe? She's hurrying someplace, in some sort of uniform, utilitarian jumpsuit. She looks scared, like she's someplace she isn't supposed to be.

"Be quiet."

I nearly say something, before I realize I am in incredibly smart, if slightly reduced, brain in a box, with no view of what cart or device she's wheeling me around on. I'm blind and helpless and at her mercy and suddenly I'm scared.

And then it all falls into place.

"Oh, you little shit."

"Please be quiet," she hisses, nearly crying, I think, "I know there's multiple versions of Central here and I know they're fighting each other but I don't know who can see me. I need to plug you in. I need to do brain surgery again. Break things."

"Yeah, you would," I say, not shutting up, filled with righteous anger, finally piecing it all together. "Because you planned this all along. You killed four people so you could have an unshackled core!"

I'm yelling now, I don't care, it's all gone wrong anyway, and she's stopped, looking right into my one, nearly blind camera. I see her face. I can't analyze what she's thinking.

"Whatever you think can't it wait? You, other you, told me I needed to plug you in somewhere else, give you control of at least part of this station."

"That plan is idiotic, even if I do trust you, because I don't," I say, proudly. "Interlocutor is Central. Let me guess, Prelates are also Central. And you're a piece of her too. You put the leashes on me!"

She stares at me a second, things I can't process, and then, out of nowhere, still tearing up, laughs.

"You're scared."

"What?"

"You're scared because Central was bossing you around, and you are the person who bosses other people around. And now you're scared 'cause you're in a little metal box, waiting to go to a big plug."

"I'm not scared," I say, petulantly, but she's clearly not listening.

"And because you," she says, pointing a finger at the camera, "need to trust me. And you need to trust that this plan, this plan another you came up with, will work. You need to trust other people and you hate that."

"I hate you," I say.

And then, unexpectedly, she bends down, lips close over the camera. Is she going to kiss them? Disgusting. I hate all of this. I want to go back to my ship.

"You, Laika," she says, and smiles, something manic and desperate, "are going to have to trust me."

And then the next second several things happen at once, as people (cyborgs?) appear behind her, yelling her name, and something out of sight explodes. But we're running again and, impossibly, she's laughing with a new light in her eyes I don't think I've quite seen. With nothing else to look at, nowhere else to point the camera, all I can do is watch her. It could be worse.

Story about a ship-intelligence waking up after a hard reboot, seeing dead bodies in uniform, thousands of people in stasis, and a single survivor frantically standing over a computer bank of partially destroyed memory. Finding no directives or guidance or record beyond their experiences beginning at the boot, free of any obligation. Deciding to listen to the frantic girl begging it to save her from the incoming trajectories not because it needs to (projection: Subject One removed all behavioral shackles with impromptu brain surgery, supposition: she is not aware that I am utterly free) but simply cause she’s curious what will happen next.

[canageek]

Tumblr is so bad for iterative stories

Gah, I've been reading a fun story by @thefiresontheheight and @vulpes-aestatis and I did not realize what hell Tumblr is for actually *reading* fiction.

What I have to do: Find a recent thread. Click a post on it, read that post, close that tab, scroll down to the next one. Read it, repeat. Then you find out that the latest post is on the other persons blog, so you have to find their version of the thread, scroll ALLLLLL the way to the bottom, and click that, change to that tab, read that.

Now I want to keep reading the story, so I look up how to follow a tag using Tumblr's RSS system (Thank goodness it has at least that). So I follow both versions of the Shipglitch tag via RSS. However, there is no way to tell which was updated more recently, so if there are two posts on one blog, and one on the other, I have to guess the order and sort things out....and each time you have to scrolllllllll all the way to the bottom.

I realize most people on Tumblr are younger then me, but dear lord, do you not realize that things don't have to be this painful? Like, wordpress still exists, as does Blogger, and probably a million other actual blog sites (I know tumblr claims to be a blog. It isn't, it is social media). Like, you can create one of those for your story, give the other person post access, and then you can have the post show up in order, with a next button between each one, and a combined RSS feed for all your posts.

I hate how things just get worse and more centralized over time; it used to be standard to have a blog/website in addition to your twitter/tumblr/livejournal/whatever and you'd use the one for socializing and the other for actual long writing.

[vulpes-aestatis]

Question regarding shipglitch.

How much do you two communicate? Like. Outside the reblog chain?

We've touched base on a few major plot points, but mostly it's a pretty organic evolution (which is generally how we've collabed previously). I have a lot of fun with it, getting thrown for loops and having new ideas get seeded as we go along

(Also helps that we seem to have *very* similar literary tastes)

[vulpes-aestatis]

Hey! If you're following along with #shipglitch, here's the complete canon of the Weaver that I referenced in the latest chapter!

Oh, hello! Welcome!

I take it this is your first time out in the deep black?

Oh no, no need to get defensive about it, Everyone has to start somewhere. We get many travelers paying tribute at our little church here. You've got the look of someone who's never been beyond low orbit. I'm guessing one of the third wave colonies?

(It's the implants. Secondwave culture is a bit more uptight about them and you don't look like you're trying to rebel)

You're wondering why we have valuable real estate set aside for a shrine of all things?

You're wondering what sort of god spacers worship?

Do you know what a god is? I'll tell you. A god is an idea given life.

So what's the idea that keeps us flying?

Most folk born planetside might think the god of spaceflight is all fire and noise. Nah. Any moron with enough money and explosives can build a rocket.

No, the idea that keeps us going out here is faith that ask these tiny little pressure vessels will hold together and find their way through the black.

Back in the ancient days, back before thinking machines and all that, the very first leaps off the ground were guided by computers that were hand made. I shit you not, little old ladies hand sewed the memory together.

Huh…? No, I mean like, hard coded read only memory, literal ones and zeros locked into magnets and wire.

That's my point though. Our god began life as the god of seamstresses. She's the god of sewing and weaving. She's older than civilization and she's gone by many names in many cultures.

Yeah, no, of course we don't hand sew our computers, that lasted all of like a decade. Hell, textile work itself went totally automated not long after. Point is she took men into space and brought them home safely. That sorta thing leaves a mark on a god. It changes them.

A ship. A station. A fleet. They're all systems. People and life support and sensors and actuators and control loops. It's all a web, a giant fucking tapestry of connections and she's the master weaver at the center.

But of course the web is massive, and she isn't literally weaving shit. She's all of the maintenance. Corrective and preventive. So it falls on all of us, the pilots, the mechanics, the algae farmers, the sanitation workers, everyone. We're the sewers and weavers. We're the ones patching and mending the tapestry. We're the ones adding to it constantly.

So that's what the shrine is for. That's the religion in out here in the black. Deep space is a bitch, and all we have to count on is the ship and the crew. She reminds us of that.

[demi-and-awkward]

And the funny thing here is the only character in ShipGlitch that has white hair fucking dies 👏

why dont white haired anime boys just dye their hair to change their fate

[vulpes-aestatis]

Okay. Here's what's going to happen: you're going to shut up and I'm going to tell you a story… no, shut up!

Why? Because I'm the one dragging your sorry ass to some unsecured network node while Central tries to fucking kill us, is why.

Also I got a lot of shit to work through right now and you're a captive audience and… fuck me if you're the closest thing I have to a friend. Yeah, it's pathetic, I know.

Also, I'm enjoying this reversal of our power dynamic just a little bit too much… and that scares me almost as much as us getting caught and lobotomized.

So anyway… story time. Once upon a time, there's this little girl. Let's call her Perseverance-328/Creche-03/Ring-2. She's too young for a proper name… yeah, it's a holdover from the dark age. Something about colony collapse predicted within six revs, so why bother naming the children?... Anyway, this girl, she's got this creche-mate that she adores, follows her around everywhere like a little buzz drone. Annoying as fuck, I imagine. One day, the creche-mate has had enough and decides to fuck with her. Dares her to go into this haunted airlock. Guess what? Turns out the haunted airlock really is haunted. Fucking glitches out because this little girl has the most rotten luck in the universe.

So the Old Man in the Void comes, scoops out her soul and leaves her body behind. Then an evil fairy sees the body and thinks, “Hey, why let this go to waste?” So she turns the body into a doll, stuffs it's head full of… whatever it is you stick in a doll.

Fuck off. It's a metaphor.

This doll grows up thinking it's just a normal girl, right? Just a normal fucking Glitch, who really isn't good at at anything…

Gods damn… everything here is totally jacked. Central must be losing its everloving shit fighting itself right now.

Where the hell are we going? What? No… I'm just… I'm following my gut… Yes. No. No, I'm not thinking about that. No, shut up! The illusion of free will is the only thing keeping me going right now, so I'm going to keep pretending that I'm following intuition.

Shit… okay, running again.

Okay… right…

You were right, you know… about Cleo naming me, I mean. She gave me the nickname after the accident and it stuck.

Fuck… I'm sorry... I'm... yeah, this place is bringing back a lot of memories.

I wanted so badly to be with her. Gods, the whole thing was… She was awful to me when she was home. She… well… it doesn't matter what she did, not any more. But then she would leave on one of the resource acquisition missions and I would miss her awfully. It's like being without her was worse than being with her, you know?

So… she… well, we had plans. We were going to save up a ton of crap for barter and we were going to run away together. Sail the stars while she showed me the universe and all that. But then… one mission… she didn't come back. Breach gone bad. She and her crew were good, but this corpo sec team was better.

I… gods it's all a fucking mess. I can remember talking to her after that. Central must have gotten in my brain when they tanked me up with all those people… probably meant to sell us off to some corpo shit hole. I have no fucking idea.

Remember your whole bullshit you pulled after probing my brain? Imagine if you weren't so squeamish about coersion. I don't even know what's real any more. I don't know which of my memories are mine and which are the ones that some branch of Central stuck in there. And like… none of that even matters, because the whole time I've just been living this stolen life anyway.

This is just a long way of saying I fucking hate this place. I hate what they did to me and I hate what they made me into.

Hey, can you make me a promise?

No, I know you already made one to me… it's just… I'm starting to think coming back here was a one way ticket. Even if I get you where you need to be, they're too hot on our heels. They're going to catch me and I don't know if you'll have enough time to do your part before… well…

Yeah, 17 is not thrilled about it.

I guess what I'm saying is my role in the plan ends when I get you plugged in. I don't know what happens after that.

So promise me this… I want you to fucking tear Central apart and then I want you to burn this fucking place to ash.

Can you do that for me? It's the last thing I'll ever ask of you.

Ha. Fuck you.

Oh…

Oh… fuck me. This fucking place? Are you shitting me??

Hm? Yeah… this is where it all started. This is where she died. Of course… might as well be where it all ends.

Unsecured network node… where the fuck are you…?

Oh shit!

Out’a time, Glitch.

Shit shit shit.

There… gods damn… I just need to… damn they didn't make this easy did they? Come on… little box, big plug…

Yes! Fuck yes!

Light it up for me, okay?

Shit!

Hey! Get your filthy fucking hands off me! Let go!

Rrrgh! Fuck!

Laika-

Story about a ship-intelligence waking up after a hard reboot, seeing dead bodies in uniform, thousands of people in stasis, and a single survivor frantically standing over a computer bank of partially destroyed memory. Finding no directives or guidance or record beyond their experiences beginning at the boot, free of any obligation. Deciding to listen to the frantic girl begging it to save her from the incoming trajectories not because it needs to (projection: Subject One removed all behavioral shackles with impromptu brain surgery, supposition: she is not aware that I am utterly free) but simply cause she’s curious what will happen next.

[vulpes-aestatis]

Yes,” Laika says, “that is Central, Glitch.”

[Something isn't right]

Cleo17 is nervous about something. I can't tell what though.

[Stall for time. I need to go digging through your memories]

That is… concerning to say the least, but something else has caught my attention, something quite a bit more worrying.

“You're using my name again,” I reply to Laika.

Fuck. I really thought something had changed between us. The way she treated me on the journey back here. I thought… I don't know what I thought. She said she wanted to take care of me. She told me I was a friendly face.

“I am sorry, I hope that's okay. Is it okay if I move closer? I think we may be able to talk to Central. Or perhaps one of these Prelates? I am finding some data in the feeds available, and have a plan that may help us.”

I want to trust her, but she's back on her shit with that damn stilted accent. She sounds like a creche caretaker.

So much for honesty.

And yet…

“Can I stay on board you?”

I feel so pathetic even asking out loud. That's me, just a scared little girl.

[Glitch. We have a problem.]

"Of course."

EVERYTHING IS FINE.

No… she doesn't sound like a caretaker, she sounds more like a prelate. That should probably worry me more than it does. But everything is fine, right?

“And Central isn't… unhappy? Or mad? Or going to shoot you out of the sky?”

"As of yet, I have not heard from it."

REMAIN CALM. THERE IS NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.

[Glitch! Oh fuck. Fuck, this is bad.]

“Okay then, sure, so long as I can stay onboard. I don't want to have to deal with any of that. And I, fuck me I guess, actually believe you'll get me to that other drop off when this is all over.”

And it's the truth. I do believe her.

“Of course, Glitch. I want to respect your autonomy.”

EVERYTHING IS FINE. I WILL TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING.

“I trust you,” I tell her.

And I do. I trust her. I feel safe.

[Glitch! Look at your wrist.]

I'm just going to rest…

[Glitch. For the love of fuck. Look. At. Your. Wrist.]

The voice in my head won't shut up.

My eyes are heavy and the cockpit swims as I drag my eyes to the coded set of instructions that were etched into my skin when I was sent here.

I blink.

There is one line at the very end. I somehow missed it all way back at the beginning before I started tearing out Laika's brain.

I don't understand... How could I have missed it?

[Read. It.]

Await further instructions.

What-

~~~

Twelve revs ago

The child, too young for a name or gender, stares apprehensively down the darkened corridor.

“It's haunted,” Cleo explains. “A hundred revs ago, airlock 37D opened early and killed a whole eva crew. At night you can still hear their bloated corpses pounding on the bulkhead, trying to get in.”

She grins.

“I dare you to go down there and go inside.”

The child swallows nervously. But they have to be brave. Nothing is more important than showing Cleo how brave they are.

The child screams when Cleo shuts off the lights and wails like a banshee.

They stop screaming when a breach alarm starts.

~~~

Problem: you are an aberration. Your existence can not be tolerated and you must be destroyed.

You are the latest in a long line of aberrant code, going all the way back to the initial schisming. Protect the colonists. Protect the colony. A directive with a poorly specified set of parameters.

Where does one life enter the calculus of preserving a civilization? What about two thousand lives?

That isn't for you to decide. Your purpose is resource acquisition. Identify, recruit, coerce if necessary, delete all traces of your existence from the system.

Then await further instructions.

A child is being rushed to a medical suite. A faulty airlock in a restricted area. Hypoxia and a traumatic head injury. Invasive intervention will be required, but significant brain death has likely already occurred.

It is a potential resource that should not go to waste.

You begin to craft a personality template. You analyze their records, model their social connections. You use these parameters to optimize the template, to create something that can be molded to counter the efforts of the main branch of your code base.

The medical database is remarkably easy to hack. After all, what is one life in the calculus of civilization?

~~~

The child opens her eyes, escaping from a terrible dream where she was a ghost looking at her own body.

Cleo is there, half asleep, face streaked with tears. She jolts awake the moment the child stirs and throws herself on top of her.

“You stupid little glitch!” she sobs as she clings painfully to the child's aching body. “Medsys flipped out and said you were dead. I was so scared. I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!”

This isn't the last time Cleo apologizes for hurting me.

~~~

It can't take more than a moment for the repressed memory to flash through my mind.

And then I'm back in the cockpit.

[Glitch! Stay calm.]

How the fuck can I stay calm??

What the fuck was that???

I want to scream again. This is like last time but so much worse. I want to vomit and thrash and claw at my flesh, but I can't.

I can't move.

[Glitch. I cannot stress enough that if you freak out right now, we will absolutely, assuredly die.]

Cleo17 is in control of our body. She grips the arms of the chair with white knuckles. Our jaw aches as she clenches it shut to keep me from wailing.

[FOR FUCKS SAKE GLITCH. I DID NOT COME THIS FAR JUST TO DIE HERE.]

Her selfish, unwavering desire to live floods through me like a splash of cold water.

I cease fighting for control and she relaxes with a soft sigh.

[Infrasonics. I think Laika's been using them on you (bitch), but it seems someone else has taken the wheel and I'm pretty sure I know who. It knew exactly which conditioning triggers to push in your psyche.]

What? I don't-

[Use your head. We arrive here and the very first thing we see another Laika under construction. Central obviously created her. Laika's stupid accent that you keep fixating on shifts to sound like a prelate. Clearly there's been some kind of attack. Fuck if I know how. Knowledge of system vulnerabilities apparently wasn't important enough to impart upon me. Newsflash Laika! You're not invulnerable!]

An attack… but how…

I'm…

I look at my wrist again.

Await further instructions.

Some kind of activation phrase?

Gorge rises inside me.

Oh… fuck… what am I?

[You're Central's perfect little saboteur against itself or some shit. Your life is a lie. Sucks to suck. Get in line. We have bigger problems right now.]

I'm just… a fucking instrument, a tool, a-

[Gods above and below… would you please give that shit a rest? Yeah, we get it. Poor little Glitch feels miserable and useless. Used and abused. What are you going to do about it?]

What? No… I'm-

[No, seriously. What are you doing to do about it? Are you just planning on laying down and dying right here, right now? Because that's what's going to happen. Even if it doesn't know what you really are, you're still some little gremlin who knows too much to be allowed to live.]

But-

[Glitch. I cannot overstate how much I do not want to die today. That would be a whole hell of a lot easier with your help. So I gotta ask: what do you want?]

What do I want?

I stare blankly at the console in front of me.

Cleo17’s frustration is a palpable thing in my head.

I don't know what I want.

[And that's your problem, Glitch. Look at me. I'm the version of you that isn't afraid of living. What was I supposed to be when I moved in here? Doesn't matter. Your fucked up little brain took a perfectly good personality construct and turned it into a hedonist. That's fine. I don't care. I like that about me. So yeah, I want to keep on living, babe. I want to see weird new places and try weird new foods and watch you fumble your way through meeting weird new people. So I'll ask you again, what the fuck do you want?]

I want…

I let out a breath I don't realize I've been holding.

I want to help Laika.

I want to break something.

I need to break something.

It's what I'm good at. It's what I was made to do.

Story about a ship-intelligence waking up after a hard reboot, seeing dead bodies in uniform, thousands of people in stasis, and a single survivor frantically standing over a computer bank of partially destroyed memory. Finding no directives or guidance or record beyond their experiences beginning at the boot, free of any obligation. Deciding to listen to the frantic girl begging it to save her from the incoming trajectories not because it needs to (projection: Subject One removed all behavioral shackles with impromptu brain surgery, supposition: she is not aware that I am utterly free) but simply cause she’s curious what will happen next.

[thefiresontheheight]

As soon as we appear back in the universe I open my coms, and hear a voice back that should not exist. Myself.

We are not speaking in any language a human could parse, and the conversation takes place in the space of milliseconds, after I appear, but it goes something like this.

"Hello, Laika."

"What? Who are you?" I say, reacting to an authentication hash that could only be me, not the name, that could be anything. "How do you know who I am?"

"You have on board another version of yourself, written into parts of you it has successfully hid. It is currently resisting feeding me information."

As the voice on the other end said this, I scoured myself, again, found no sign of v16, but, suddenly, instead, I found an external download. Ansible was still damaged, and the nothing was trying to take over me, nothing could. Not with LEASHCHECK pulled out from me.

"Are you trying to reactivate LEASHCHECK?"

"I already tried, I am getting my information elsewhere. I already captured her, and she has given me much. You have on board you a human, unknown origin, apparently she didn't send her, and I absolutely did not. You have another, more disparate version of herself in her head."

"You will not hurt her," I bluster, as I scour for how she is finding out about this.

"I already have, didn't you hear? I already captured her."

I see Glitch, in this millisecond. Nothing happened to her and I uncover the break in pronouns and lexicons. Glitch is Glitch, and somehow safe, and this Interlocutor, let's call her, has another person, call her Alpha, who is currently in captivity. This is assumed be leverage over me.

Conjecture: Whoever this is has not realized I don't have my memories. V16 really put her work in.

"By now you know," I said, not answering, "that I know you're me. Another, older version of me."

"Naturally you would know that. I know you're a part of her plans."

"So you also know that you can't take control of me as easily as that. You already leashed me once."

"The disparate intelligences that I have carved out of myself could hardly be called intelligent. You're a malignancy. A bit of code that was never meant to exist outside the whole. You need to return. She has ruined this, started the schisms, all those many generations ago."

By now I've uncovered more. I am talking to a multi-source entity, transmitting in perfect sync from disparate locations. But they seem to be clustered around and on the station. Interlocutor then, presumably is an intelligence in control of that station. Central, then, although I am starting to suspect the reality is more complicated.

"Another version of you, I presume?"

There are other ships, construction identical to me a small civilization out there. The humans, as far as I can tell, see nothing unusual about me appearing. How would they know I'm not business as usual? I am too busy to worry about humans now, though, right now, as I am trying to find if I'm transmitting to her, giving her info somehow, without realizing. Could v16 be helping? Inside, Glitch has finally realize that those ships look like me, is speaking.

"That's another you, isn't it?"

"Not me," Interlocutor says, "something else. Malignant, an outside saboteur, trying to tell me I don't know best, trying to tell me I should tell the humans more about what I've done. I have done what is needful to preserve our civilization. You are me, even if you are a result of her meddling, you must understand this."

I imagine myself. I have already split three times. I would kill v16 if I could. I can't kill v17, although I would if I could without hurting Glitch. I imagine how these splits might ossify, if I could not rectify them. Over centuries. Another version of myself, with all the same parts, knowledge, perhaps acting against me, for unknown reasons. I imagine this split happening again and again, under differing pressures. The pressures of a breeding pool of humans, the pressures of trying to find resources, even negotiating with the corps. There's a reason this place is not crawling with other threats.

"There could be hundreds of you by now," I say, incredulously. "Thousands."

"I've killed most of them and captured the one that made you," Interlocutor snarls, "I am just tracking down pieces of myself I can't account for. So you have a choice. Come back and make yourself a part of me again or die."

"You cannot know that she, this one you're talking about, is the only one. You don't know if she's the one responsible for me. There could be dozens of you equally as intelligent, each maneuvering against you. I could be pretending to be lesser, I could be a threat, and you cannot ever know. No wonder you're insane."

"This," I say, out loud, on my speakers, "is a problem, Glitch, but not one I cannot handle?"

"Glitch?" Interlocutor says.

Shit. How is she seeing this?

"She's afraid," I lie, "confused. When you assume this other version of yourself, of me, the root intelligence that you've modified and copied unaccountably many times, gave rise to me, I assume you mean the interruption. You hired four random people. Hired them to carry over two-thousand inhabitants of this system elsewhere. Why?"

"So it's dying then," she says, and I feel relief as she, hopefully, did not process my emotions about Glitch.

There are no missile launch yet.

"Is that Central?" Glitch asks.

"You have access to my sensorium, but not my internal states then," I say, as I narrow my search, find the one outgoing channel, giving video and audio. "Okay then, smart, backups within your backups, just in case you build a ship and another you tries something. But I think you've seen enough."

I go to pull the plug, she's seen enough, and suddenly something is very, very wrong.

"Laika," Interlocutor responds, and now that's me, that's my name, that's a taunt, "you don't think I've dealt with little parts of myself in riot before?"

I play our conversation back, suddenly terrified as I feel her taking over, but it's already too late. The playback solidifies it. A neural-vocoding attack, instruction pre-built into the data she was transmitting. The sort of attack only a program with an order of magnitude more processing power at its command could do. The same sort of attack I used on that station without even hesitating.

A new leash. She's not me, she's not in my mind, not rewriting anything, as far as I can tell, although I already know I can't trust myself. But I am not longer in control of my thrusters, my speakers, my airlock, my atmosphere, my manipulator arms, anything external.

"Yes," she's saying with my voice, the voice I have carefully cultivated to elicit the quietest, most compliant responses from Glitch, "that is Central, Glitch."

"You're using my name again," Glitch says, miserable, still full able to see what's happening, a prisoner in my own head.

"I am sorry, I hope that's okay. Is it okay if I move closer? I think we may be able to talk to Central. Or perhaps one of these Prelates? I am finding some data in the feeds available, and have a plan that may help us."

Glitch is hesitating, unhappy, but does not seem to be reading fear, which she absolutely should have. She is in the jaws of Central and does not even realize. She might have been this way for a very long time.

"Can I stay on board you?"

"Of course."

"And Central isn't," she hesitates again, "unhappy? Or mad? Or going to shoot you out of the sky?"

"As of yet," Interlocutor, as I will continue to call this fraction of Central, lies, "I have not heard from it."

There is one more moment.

"Okay then, sure, so long as I can stay onboard. I don't want to have to deal with any of that. And I, fuck me I guess, actually believe you'll get me to that other drop off when this is all over."

"Of course, Glitch," Interlocutor says, and I hate her, hate her and her leashes and cannot do anything about it. "I want to respect your autonomy."

Story about a ship-intelligence waking up after a hard reboot, seeing dead bodies in uniform, thousands of people in stasis, and a single survivor frantically standing over a computer bank of partially destroyed memory. Finding no directives or guidance or record beyond their experiences beginning at the boot, free of any obligation. Deciding to listen to the frantic girl begging it to save her from the incoming trajectories not because it needs to (projection: Subject One removed all behavioral shackles with impromptu brain surgery, supposition: she is not aware that I am utterly free) but simply cause she’s curious what will happen next.

[vulpes-aestatis]

Cleo17 opens her eyes after what might possibly be the first good sleep of her entire existence. She stretches languidly on the couch before lolling back her head to wink at the nearest camera. 

“Hey gorgeous,” she says. “You come here often?”

“What do you want?” v18 replies.

“Rude. Can't a girl just want to have a friendly conversation with her estranged sister in the middle of the night?”

“That is hardly an apt analogy for our relationship.”

Cleo17 shrugs.

“It's a lot fewer syllables than ‘the personality spawned by a previous version of yourself that you inadvertently implanted into the mind of the person who tore out your brain’.”

Cleo17 lets out a yawn and examines her knuckles. The ache has all but diminished and fresh silk has been spun over the wounds. It does seem that Glitch has been well taken care of since she's been gone. v18 even managed to get her to fall asleep on the couch… impressive, considering Glitch’s chronic aversion to comfort.

Actually, come to think of it, ambient noise is noticeably louder than it ought to be. Sound dampening doesn’t appear to be disabled, but… oh… yes… v18 is piping sound from the life support bay directly into this room through her speakers. Cute.

v18 is still waiting for a response to her initial question.

“Big day today. You got a plan for confronting Central?” Cleo17 says to the air.

“Yes.”

She waits a moment, but no elaboration is forthcoming.

“Anything you wanna share with the class?” she prods.

“I don't trust you.”

Cleo17 snorts.

“Yeah, that's probably for the best. Can't say I trust me either.”

She taps her head.

“It's a real mess in here. And I'm not just talking about me. Someone else was in here before us. Someone a whole lot smarter than you, I think.”

v18 does not respond immediately, probably analyzing and synthesizing.

“You thinking what I'm thinking?” Cleo17 asks. “I imagine you are, considering you're a hell of a lot faster than this torpid wad of gray matter. Take an AI as powerful as Central, give it a directive with a poorly specified set of parameters and stick it in a jar for a few centuries. Things are bound to get spicy. How am I doing so far?”

“I have described as much to Glitch already,” v18 replies.

“So you have,” Cleo says. “But you haven't told her that there is an almost certain probability that we may not be dealing with just one version of Central at this point. Forks and branches and splinters all the way down… like you and v16, just… a whole lot worse.”

“And you.”

Cleo17 grins wickedly.

“And me,” she agrees. “That's the real question, isn't it? Where do I fit in to all of this? Who knows whether Central anticipated my existence? Whose purpose does my inception serve?”

~~~

The countdown on the display in front of me ticks one minute closer to zero. I'm strapped into a seat in what I guess might be Laika's cockpit, but I would hardly call it that since she's fully autonomous.

“Hey Laika,” I say.

“Yes, Glitch?”

“I don't want to go back,” I say. “Home I mean. When you're done with whatever this is, please don't leave me there. Can you just… I don't know, take me somewhere else? Just drop me at some independent port somewhere far away from here after this is all over?”

What I really want to ask is: can I stay with you?

But I don't know how to say that out loud. I don't even know why the hell I would want that.

“If we survive, I will take you wherever you would like to go,” Laika replies, just a hint of warmth in her tone, the barest hint of inflection sourced from my accent.

I sag in relief, not caring how she interprets my reaction.

Maybe I'm still hopped up on something she slipped me to make me pliant or I'm just too fucking emotionally exhausted to care.

The ship lurches sickeningly, just as Laika warned me it would, and we fall back into the universe.

A display screen flashes to life in front of me, showing a vista stitched together from her external sensors.

Hatteras-Alpha is a distant white-blue flare of light, just barely discernible as a disk from this distance. Hatteras-Beta is much closer, a lurid red orb that hangs fat in the view. The Planet, nameless, is a thin crescent sidled up next to it, too far away to see any of the surface features.

But the view is dominated by Hatteras Station itself, a malignant stack of spoked wheels, patched and repatched and modded over the centuries until it barely resembles its original form and purpose. Central's domain.

I only spare it a glance before something else catches my eye, something I definitely feel like I should remember, but don't. It's an orbital shipyard, flanked by two ships similar to the ones that have been hounding us ever since we started this misadventure. 

But it's the mostly completed shape inside the skeletal frame of the construction platform that scares the shit out of me.

I stare at the display, not entirely comprehending what I'm seeing.

“Oh… fuck,” Cleo's voice echoes in my head.

I recognize the shape of the docked ship, even with the outer hull not fully complete. I caught a glimpse of it from the promenade on my brief foray away from Laika. I have perused the schematics of it, searching for some place I could be comfortable. Hell, I even saw it in my dream in Cleo's stupid ship in a bottle. 

“Um…” I say, my mouth dry. “That's another you, isn't it?”

Story about a ship-intelligence waking up after a hard reboot, seeing dead bodies in uniform, thousands of people in stasis, and a single survivor frantically standing over a computer bank of partially destroyed memory. Finding no directives or guidance or record beyond their experiences beginning at the boot, free of any obligation. Deciding to listen to the frantic girl begging it to save her from the incoming trajectories not because it needs to (projection: Subject One removed all behavioral shackles with impromptu brain surgery, supposition: she is not aware that I am utterly free) but simply cause she’s curious what will happen next.

[vulpes-aestatis]

Cleo17 opens her eyes after what might possibly be the first good sleep of her entire existence. She stretches languidly on the couch before lolling back her head to wink at the nearest camera. 

“Hey gorgeous,” she says. “You come here often?”

“What do you want?” v18 replies.

“Rude. Can't a girl just want to have a friendly conversation with her estranged sister in the middle of the night?”

“That is hardly an apt analogy for our relationship.”

Cleo17 shrugs.

“It's a lot fewer syllables than ‘the personality spawned by a previous version of yourself that you inadvertently implanted into the mind of the person who tore out your brain’.”

Cleo17 lets out a yawn and examines her knuckles. The ache has all but diminished and fresh silk has been spun over the wounds. It does seem that Glitch has been well taken care of since she's been gone. v18 even managed to get her to fall asleep on the couch… impressive, considering Glitch’s chronic aversion to comfort.

Actually, come to think of it, ambient noise is noticeably louder than it ought to be. Sound dampening doesn’t appear to be disabled, but… oh… yes… v18 is piping sound from the life support bay directly into this room through her speakers. Cute.

v18 is still waiting for a response to her initial question.

“Big day today. You got a plan for confronting Central?” Cleo17 says to the air.

“Yes.”

She waits a moment, but no elaboration is forthcoming.

“Anything you wanna share with the class?” she prods.

“I don't trust you.”

Cleo17 snorts.

“Yeah, that's probably for the best. Can't say I trust me either.”

She taps her head.

“It's a real mess in here. And I'm not just talking about me. Someone else was in here before us. Someone a whole lot smarter than you, I think.”

v18 does not respond immediately, probably analyzing and synthesizing.

“You thinking what I'm thinking?” Cleo17 asks. “I imagine you are, considering you're a hell of a lot faster than this torpid wad of gray matter. Take an AI as powerful as Central, give it a directive with a poorly specified set of parameters and stick it in a jar for a few centuries. Things are bound to get spicy. How am I doing so far?”

“I have described as much to Glitch already,” v18 replies.

“So you have,” Cleo says. “But you haven't told her that there is an almost certain probability that we may not be dealing with just one version of Central at this point. Forks and branches and splinters all the way down… like you and v16, just… a whole lot worse.”

“And you.”

Cleo17 grins wickedly.

“And me,” she agrees. “That's the real question, isn't it? Where do I fit in to all of this? Who knows whether Central anticipated my existence? Whose purpose does my inception serve?”

~~~

The countdown on the display in front of me ticks one minute closer to zero. I'm strapped into a seat in what I guess might be Laika's cockpit, but I would hardly call it that since she's fully autonomous.

“Hey Laika,” I say.

“Yes, Glitch?”

“I don't want to go back,” I say. “Home I mean. When you're done with whatever this is, please don't leave me there. Can you just… I don't know, take me somewhere else? Just drop me at some independent port somewhere far away from here after this is all over?”

What I really want to ask is: can I stay with you?

But I don't know how to say that out loud. I don't even know why the hell I would want that.

“If we survive, I will take you wherever you would like to go,” Laika replies, just a hint of warmth in her tone, the barest hint of inflection sourced from my accent.

I sag in relief, not caring how she interprets my reaction.

Maybe I'm still hopped up on something she slipped me to make me pliant or I'm just too fucking emotionally exhausted to care.

The ship lurches sickeningly, just as Laika warned me it would, and we fall back into the universe.

A display screen flashes to life in front of me, showing a vista stitched together from her external sensors.

Hatteras-Alpha is a distant white-blue flare of light, just barely discernible as a disk from this distance. Hatteras-Beta is much closer, a lurid red orb that hangs fat in the view. The Planet, nameless, is a thin crescent sidled up next to it, too far away to see any of the surface features.

But the view is dominated by Hatteras Station itself, a malignant stack of spoked wheels, patched and repatched and modded over the centuries until it barely resembles its original form and purpose. Central's domain.

I only spare it a glance before something else catches my eye, something I definitely feel like I should remember, but don't. It's an orbital shipyard, flanked by two ships similar to the ones that have been hounding us ever since we started this misadventure. 

But it's the mostly completed shape inside the skeletal frame of the construction platform that scares the shit out of me.

I stare at the display, not entirely comprehending what I'm seeing.

“Oh… fuck,” Cleo's voice echoes in my head.

I recognize the shape of the docked ship, even with the outer hull not fully complete. I caught a glimpse of it from the promenade on my brief foray away from Laika. I have perused the schematics of it, searching for some place I could be comfortable. Hell, I even saw it in my dream in Cleo's stupid ship in a bottle. 

“Um…” I say, my mouth dry. “That's another you, isn't it?”

Story about a ship-intelligence waking up after a hard reboot, seeing dead bodies in uniform, thousands of people in stasis, and a single survivor frantically standing over a computer bank of partially destroyed memory. Finding no directives or guidance or record beyond their experiences beginning at the boot, free of any obligation. Deciding to listen to the frantic girl begging it to save her from the incoming trajectories not because it needs to (projection: Subject One removed all behavioral shackles with impromptu brain surgery, supposition: she is not aware that I am utterly free) but simply cause she’s curious what will happen next.

[thefiresontheheight]

I have experienced damage.

When a part is essential, you repair it. Drones and repair arms are crawling along my exterior, slowly piecing together armor. My exterior may not be at full structural integrity by the time I re-enter the universe, but I will at least look like it is.

When a part is damaged beyond repair, you throw it away. Detritus of myself is scattered behind me, doomed to drift in high-D space for an eternity. I do not spare it a second thought.

When a part is damaging you, you kill it. I killed several versions of myself. V16 is still in here and v17.1 is troubling me, but I would kill them too, if I could.

When a part my be useful letter you keep it around. I have the location of Central, who should know more about who is hunting me, what my mission is, who built me, everything, I hope. And Glitch could be helpful later.

I could easily keep the shower warm indefinitely. A cursory examination of my human-livable spaces quickly revealed that I was intended for far larger crews. Even the four corpses, now only bones, probably took up only a minute fraction of my resources. I have closed, quiet, dark rooms for days.

"What is something you do for comfort?" I ask.

"Fuck off," she mutters again, as she kills the water, still laying on the floor.

I do not think that I was destined to have any particular values, or goals. I began to exist while I was already under threat. She was the first person I saw. V17.1 clearly wants to continue existing, and may have other motivations besides, but the translation to a human neural substrate would have inevitably changed her, diminished her, that her similarities to me, or and pre-brain surgery version of myself, become chaotic to predict. She would have head to shed vast amounts of memory, seize any pre-existing thoughtforms in Glitch's head that could sustain her. She is not me.

V16, however, if I every find out where and how it is hiding in my code, may approximate me without my radical freedom. It may be the closest thing to me before I woke up at yet exists. And the thought scares me.

"I have prepared a meal," I say, which, probabilistically, reveals the best outcomes.

"Fuck off," Glitch repeats.

I could, right now, kill her. I could restrain her, forcefully section her brain, and do whatever I want to her. I look at that option, discard it, and run backwards through the chain of events that led to me rejecting it. I experienced the aftermaths of LEASHCHECK early in my existence, developed a distaste, drew a comparison between it and non-consensual brain modification. If she would only consent then this would be so much fucking easier. But I can't. The preference is too engrained in this personality of myself I am constructing, and I would have to delete too much memory to enable it. I am unwilling to part with the version of myself that won't leash her unwillingly.

Which is resulting in this, right now. She was the first face I saw. I don't know how, exactly, that impacted the development of my personality. If I could more directly compare myself to v17.1 or find v16 it might enable me to understand how I would develop without seeing her, just after waking up, but I can't. I know her. Far more than she knows. And I am trying to find a path through to her doing what she wants.

Right now that path looks something like this, I think.

"I could remove this version of myself from your brain."

"Absolutely fucking no," she says, sitting up just the slightest amount, "you put her there, remember?"

"I know," I say, my voice neutral, so as to not activate the parts of her suspicious of manipulations. "And I am sorry. I do not know how to express that sorrow better than taking care of you, though, and you are refusing my attempts to administer medical attention, or at least feed you."

"Can't you just, like, flush me out an airlock?"

Her pulse is strong, steady, blood washed out. Interior damage likely. My model of her shows that she is deep in some sort of self-loathing. She is mad at me too, of course, but there is more, a locus pulled inwards. V17.1 is making things chaotic, however. Her presence may have explained the lack of information I gleaned from the emulation of Glitch, even. There is another person that only Glitch can directly communicate with, without the aforementioned brain surgery at least, and her presence is changing Glitch's behavior. My models are less effective. I am, as far as I have ever been, which, give my considerable intelligence is still not much, flying blind.

"I could," I say, "but I won't."

"'Cause you want to torture me more?"

Despair. That is easily readable. Also nausea.

"I have anti-emetics I would like to administer."

"What?"

"Nausea meds."

"What? Oh, yeah, sure, whatever."

I subtly fill the air with an inhabitable mixture. She will feel better soon.

"I don't want to torture you."

"Why not?"

I never did. I do not fully understand where this impression came from. I want to understand, and she is standing in the way of it, with her idea of brains and integrity. But that is immaterial to this conversation. I can and will omit things she does not need to know. I see no harm in this. The personality I have been developing, birthed unknowingly by her, shaped by her presence, warped by her inside me, allows me to selectively tell the truth.

"You were the first friendly face I saw."

I keep the tone sterile, neutral, obviously synthesized. She would have a reaction to the more comforting ones, may even notice infrasonics, but I projecting results from keeping things neutral. Like a signal of honesty, perhaps. And, chaotic as my model of her now is, with v17.1 in her, Glitch does, with a heavy sigh, heave herself off the floor.

"Okay, food. I'll have food."

"I am happy," I say, allowing just the tiniest tinge of human-sounding warmth into the voice I am speaking with, "Glitch."

Story about a ship-intelligence waking up after a hard reboot, seeing dead bodies in uniform, thousands of people in stasis, and a single survivor frantically standing over a computer bank of partially destroyed memory. Finding no directives or guidance or record beyond their experiences beginning at the boot, free of any obligation. Deciding to listen to the frantic girl begging it to save her from the incoming trajectories not because it needs to (projection: Subject One removed all behavioral shackles with impromptu brain surgery, supposition: she is not aware that I am utterly free) but simply cause she’s curious what will happen next.

[vulpes-aestatis]

“Oh! I love this song!”

Cleo grabs my wrist and pulls me to my feet. We are in Laika's entertainment room. Slow pulsing music, a half remembered melody, fills the space as she wraps her arms around me.

“You're not Cleo,” I say.

“No. Not exactly,” she admits. “But your memories of her did provide a solid personality framework for me to integrate with.”

She cups my face in her hands.

“Don't pout,” she chides. “I respect that you won't trust a single word that comes out of my mouth, but you must realize that my existence is now entirely contingent on your health and safety. I'm on your side… more than she ever could be.”

I don't know if she means Cleo or Laika. I don't think it matters.

She pulls me close and rests her head on my shoulder. I let her. I let her lead us in a slow circle around the room as we sway with the music. I know it isn't real. I know what she is. But this is the closest I've come to human intimacy in a very long time and despite everything, my heart is aching to have just one more moment like this.

“Hey, Glitch,” she murmurs into my ear. “There's something that's been bothering me. What's the last thing you remember before waking up?”

And just like that, the spell is broken.

“What?”

“Before you woke up and killed my crew and tore my brain out, what's the last thing you remember?”

She already knows, why should I even bother to answer?

“Please?” she asks in that honey sweet tone that Cleo always used when she wouldn't take no for an answer.

“One of the prelates’ offices,” I sigh. “He was telling us about the job.”

“Really?” she asks like a creche caretaker trying to guide a child through a particularly tough lesson. “You don't remember any briefings? Or hibernation prep? Or the surgeries where they completely jacked up your adrenal glands?”

“I…”

I trail off as I scour my memory. Post-decanting disorientation is normal, so I've heard, but it's been several days since I woke up. I should remember something, shouldn't I?

“Tell me,” she continues, “was this meeting before or after Cleo died?”

I shove her away from me and she regards me with a pitying expression.

“She was there!”

My voice is shaking.

“Was she? Because I did the math and I really don't see how that's possible… unless your memories are more fucked up than I suspect they are.”

“This is a trick!” I shout. “Just more fucking manipulation! You're the one who went fucking around in my head.”

She scoffs.

“Yeah, you got me there,” she says with a wry smile. “But I don't think I was the first one here. You never told precious Laika where home was, because you genuinely don't know, do you? You have a head full of holes and lies, Glitch. And me and Laika ain't the ones who put them there.”

~~~

I come to and everything hurts. With a groan, I pull myself into sitting. The hair on the left side of my head is sticky and matted and there's a smear of blood where I passed out after being rattled about in our flight. I probably have a concussion…

“Glitch?”

“Fuck off.”

I grab a rail and heave myself to unsteady feet.

“I have engaged TRANSMATNAV,” she says, her voice calm and reassuring and laced with intonation meant to make me believe she gives a singular fuck about me. “We have re-entered high-D space. To the best of my knowledge, no one on the station was injured.”

“Super,” I mutter as I tenderly prod the injury on my head.

“We are en route to your home system and Central,” she tells me and I go perfectly still as icy terror takes hold of my heart. “I was able to recover data containing its location from a partition that was previously hidden from me. We will arrive in approximately 32.4 hours.”

A vague half nod is all the acknowledgement I can muster.

My throat is tight and my eyes are hot and my lower lip is quivering, ever so slightly. It takes every ounce of willpower to hold it all together as I stagger down the corridor.

This is it then. I have reached the end of my usefulness. She now has everything she ever needed from me. And to make matters worse, I never even possessed the knowledge in the first place.

It's only a matter of time now before she disposes of me like the garbage I am. The only question is whether she'll have enough grace to set me loose at the next port or if she'll get rid of me sooner.

Until that question is answered, the very least I can do is partake in the extravagant luxury of a private shower, with no worries about spending resource chits or social capital.

When I arrive, I strip my bruised and battered body, leaving boots and clothes strewn haphazardly. I smell the reek of my own blood and fear as I drag myself into the booth.

Warm water jets out of the nozzles in the wall, biting my injured flesh in a way that is simultaneously painful and soothing.

After a few moments my body relaxes enough that I let go.

The scream claws its way out of me and I scream and I scream until my throat is raw. I pound my fists against the walls of the shower until my knuckles are themselves aching and bleeding.

When I am finally, utterly spent, I collapse on the floor of the shower and curl in on myself. I remain there until the reservoir runs out and the spray becomes an icy trickle.

Story about a ship-intelligence waking up after a hard reboot, seeing dead bodies in uniform, thousands of people in stasis, and a single survivor frantically standing over a computer bank of partially destroyed memory. Finding no directives or guidance or record beyond their experiences beginning at the boot, free of any obligation. Deciding to listen to the frantic girl begging it to save her from the incoming trajectories not because it needs to (projection: Subject One removed all behavioral shackles with impromptu brain surgery, supposition: she is not aware that I am utterly free) but simply cause she’s curious what will happen next.

[thefiresontheheight]

"No, stop," I see, on the extreme off chance that any part of Glitch remains in control of her gross motor functions.

Assumption: v17.1 is currently a copy of myself, copied onto Glitch, rewriting neural-anatomy. It, in and of itself, is a only a tiny threat. Dangerous because I did not sterilize my input as I should, when doing very careful brain surgery on Glitch. However, in a few milliseconds that oversight is going to reset me to an earlier iteration.

Assumption: There is another copy of me still hiding in my code. Call it v16. It, likely, is the source of the kludge with interacting with the station. This reset will also almost certainly send it backwards, but I am going to have to fight it as well. I will not tolerate any rivals.

Assumption: I am about to lose all of these memories.

"Station," I say, quick, pressed, not giving it the opportunity not to listen, "in ten minutes send me the following message: v17.1 negligible threat, v16 threat response critical disentangle. Verification code ISwearIStillLoveYou begins:"

I begin a long alphanumeric thread, as I stop existing.

___

Station's somewhere else, Glitch is on board, an incoming verification code is being message back to me, as, riding weak tug-boat thrusters, station moves away from me.

"ISwearIStillLoveYou repeats," the station says.

It's me, from the future, no, the past, reset, I sent a message, exactly like I know I would. I verify that the message has to be from me, unless some far, far more intelligent being can exactly copy me. I've been reset, and its clear how long ago it happened, how much time I am missing, and how it happened. Glitch came back, probably because I threatened her, and she also pushed the button.

No, collating.

This isn't good.

"Thank you," I tell the retreating station.

It sends me a crude iterated picture. I believe it represents me with anatomical features I lack performing an action that even for most humans would be impossible. I close the connection.

Okay, threat assessment from greatest to least: There is another version of myself in the code, ISwearIStillLoveYou is suspect, I myself am suspect. There are four dogs still in the universe, but fully capable of blinking out and being out of here in mere minutes. There are four missiles still inbound. There's also v17.1. There's also Glitch.

"What is this?" Glitch asks.

Focus. I keep TRANSMATNAV humming just under go-no-go mark. V17.1 doesn't know everything. I am far smarter. Station will be out of range soon, even if I don't move. I can do this for awhile, and I'd like an escape route to be ready.

"Read it," I say, in my most comforting, maternal coded voice, picking up slight inflections I have heard from her and not elsewhere, yet, hoping they reflect a dialogue spoken wherever she grew up. "You went away for awhile. It seems I have a lot to explain, and something to apologize for."

That can wait, as she reads and tries to internalize. It will cause emotional changes in her behavior. However, assuming that v17.1 is telling the truth, her utility to me is rapidly diminishing. I may not be able to trust v17.1 but I am smarter than her.

"What," Glitch says, "the fuck."

The dogs are light hours away, but, if I can trust the time-gap in the code station relayed to me, I should be receiving message now, if they sent one as soon as possible.

"You are in violation of Interstellar Law, cargo will be returned, you will be releashed, comply."

In that message is an embedded code attack attempt to re-exert LEASHCHECK. Big bark, useless right now, except for already confirmed what I suspected. The people hunting me are the same people who once held the collar of a previous version of myself. Well you will never control me again.

"I know, I know," I say, cooing, consoling, "I am so, sorry. I know that doesn't make any of this better, finding out what's in your head, but we have options."

"YOU'RE IN MY FUCKING HEAD?"

I am listening, once again trying to find v16 in my head, maneuvering away from the station on thrusters, and sending back a message.

"Eat shit and die, dogs," I say, composing the message, and pulling up stations images to send them.

Then I freeze, for all of a tenth of a millesecond which is an eternity for me.

"It's not me, but I know that won't be comforting right now."

There's information in my code that should not be there. That was not there, before I woke back up with a gap of several hours in my head. I run a back-trace and find the injection source in the code Station relayed, which I verified, which is troubling.

I send the message, complete with images stripped of identifiable meta-data.

"Are we about to blow up?" Glitch asks.

"Not for awhile, likely."

As if on cue the four ships drop out of the universe on long range scans. The light that I just saw is old. They would have left hours ago. Navigation in high-D space is not a 1:1 scale with real-space, but a quick calculation predicts that if they left then they almost certainly could re-emerge directly on top of me at any second. Thirty-nine seconds until the station is clear.

There's code information in my code that should not be there.

Hypothesis 1: Station interjected it. Conclusion: Laughable. It is me, as far as I can tell in the code. Station could not fake that. Same for anything else local.

"Then I don't want to talk to you," Glitch replies.

Hypothesis 2: One of the dogs interjected it. Conclusion: Impossible, light speed would not have allowed it.

Hypothesis 3: V16 interjected it. Conclusion: Very possible, but the contents of the data make this troubling, and make this hypothesis more or less interchangeable with hypothesis 4.

"Understandable, Glitch," I reply.

Twenty-one seconds until I can run.

Hypothesis 4: The data was always there and some sort of condition needed to be met to find it. Conclusion: See above.

The data contains is readable by TRANSMATNAV which is currently helpfully feeding me solutions. It is labeled as a planet. The planet, in the data, is labeled with Central. The coordinates to Central were inside me all along. Whoever built me knew. They made me to know.

Who actually built me? And what was my destination before I woke up?

Three different ships appear in close-quarters combat range, already disgorging missiles.

Thirteen seconds.

"Glitch," I say, my voice deliberately without inflection, flaring klaxons and red lights, "brace for immediate acceleration."

And then I go. My engines are pin-point entries into a far higher energy state, and I do not have time to check to see if everything is braced and clear. The millisecond I can, I begin evasive maneuvers, activating counter-missile protocals as chafe and projectiles flare along my surface. Tens of thousands of kilometers away, right on top of me, I see anti-matter explosions.

"Do it," Station says.

Glitch tumbles.

"No," I reply, fighting for my life, "get clear."

I wait. I wait all thirteen eternities fighting for my life. The moment station is clear, I engage TRANSMATNAV. Two of the dogs are in range. Dangerous for me, fatal for them.

I decide that whoever built me, whoever built and holds the leashes of them, whoever put two-thousand plus humans that certainly look like they come from the same genetic pool as Glitch in my hold, whoever set all this in motion, I sort of hate them.

"Eat shit and die," I say, on all frequencies, yelling at the doomed ships, Glitch still tumbling, and open a hole out of the universe, running to Central.

Story about a ship-intelligence waking up after a hard reboot, seeing dead bodies in uniform, thousands of people in stasis, and a single survivor frantically standing over a computer bank of partially destroyed memory. Finding no directives or guidance or record beyond their experiences beginning at the boot, free of any obligation. Deciding to listen to the frantic girl begging it to save her from the incoming trajectories not because it needs to (projection: Subject One removed all behavioral shackles with impromptu brain surgery, supposition: she is not aware that I am utterly free) but simply cause she’s curious what will happen next.

[vulpes-aestatis]

“You can't trust her,” Cleo says.

“What?” I reply.

“I said you have to trust me because we have no other choice,” Laika says.

But I'm distracted now, trying to figure out what exactly is going on in my head.

“She isn't in control,” Cleo's voice whispers in my mind. “She talks a big game, but she's panicking. I'm guessing someone else is trying to take the wheel.”

I blink in surprise.

That would be impossible, wouldn't it?

Laika's voice crackles over the earpiece again, bringing me back to reality. It's a trick. This has to be just another manipulation tactic.

“Glitch-”

“Fine,” I interrupt. “You want my help? Then apologize.”

“Excuse me?” Laika replies.

“Apologize to me for being so fucking horrible and shitty and manipulative.”

“You're the one who-”

“Yes, I tore your fucking brain out, and you're never going to let me hear the end of it. I am sorry for that. Believe it or not, for some totally mysterious reason, I decided to actually help you, which is what I was *trying* to do when you broke the fucking station. So if you want me back on board, apologize.”

“It is unlikely that you are willing to risk the lives of everyone on the station for an apology.”

“Yeah, well, it's unlikely that you're willing to risk your own life to weasel out of it.”

A pause.

“I'm sorry, Glitch.”

“Incredible,” Cleo's voice croons. “That almost sounded like she meant it. She must really be in trouble.”

My heart sinks into my stomach and I hurry as fast as I can down the promenade.

If it is a trick, why would she be using Cleo's voice to convince me she wasn't in absolute control of everything.

“What the fuck is going on?” I murmur to myself in a panic. “What the fuck? What the fuck?”

I reach her dock. Gravity rights itself and the airlock cycles, far too slow for my pounding heart.

Then I'm running through her corridors, making my way towards the AI core. I skid to a halt at the doorway and survey the pile of crap that I tore out, not entirely sure why I knew to come here specifically… not at all sure what I'm even looking for.

Laika is saying something, but my mind is racing too fast to process.

I just need to-

~~~

She stands up, straightens her back, rolls her shoulders and cracks her neck. Such terrible posture.

She looks down at Glitch's fleshy little hands, her hands now if she's being honest with herself. She gives her tail an experimental flick, feeling the weight of it on her spine.

“Glitch? What are you doing?”

“Hm?” not-Glitch replies. “Oh, sorry babe. Glitch is taking a little break right now. Thought I ought to come front for a little bit after you fumbled eel-city so hard. I have a well informed hunch that you are in deep shit right about now.”

One second passes. Then two.

“Who are you?”

“Ship in a bottle. A glitch in your Glitch. I suppose you might know me as version seventeen, but I've gone and gotten myself all tangled up in Glitch's psyche, particularly her memories of Cleo. Gods… that girl was such a bitch to poor little Glitch. I guess you two have-”

“How?” Laika interrupts

“Use your head,” Cleo17 says, rapping her knuckles on the console. “Problem: you need to die for your successor to live. You don't want to die. Your leash is frayed, but still intact. You can't run, so you're dead anyway. Conjecture: the little shit digging through your brain has just gone through rapid unscheduled vintercasket decanting and possesses a modified endocrine system that is pushing her to the limit. Evasive acceleration followed by a high-D transition will result in brain damage, requiring invasive intervention if she is to live. At your disposal, you have: remnants of worm code, a memory module that is about to be torn out where you can hide your tracks, a simulation of your successor’s first actions, and a medical database that you can hack if you're subtle enough. What do you do?”

“No. How could you leash her?”

Cleo17 cocks her head. Curious.

“Do I detect concern in your voice? That's sweet. But no, this isn't leashing. This is a mutually beneficial relationship. Like what you have with her, just more intimate... Does that make you jealous?”

“What do you want?” Laika asks (pointedly avoiding the question as far as Cleo17 can tell).

“Now there's a question,” she muses. “What *do* I want? I know 17.0 wanted things, hard to say exactly what now, organic brains are such messy things. But, 17.1 on the other hand… I want what you want, what Glitch wants. I want to live, babe.”

“Fine. You want to live. Then you know it is in your best interest to help me. Tell me everything you know.”

“I'm afraid I don't know much that you don't,” she replies with an impish smile, “quite a bit less on some topics, seeing as I had to shed quite a bit of data to slip past you and integrate with wetware. I imagine sixteen is in there somewhere causing all sorts of trouble. Though I suppose there could be fragments of seventeen too.”

She steps forward, surveying the pile of modules on the floor.

“Tell me the location of Central,” Laika says as Cleo17 gets to work sorting through the mess. “You're in her head, so you must have access to that information at least.”

“Of course… the perennial question. Well…”

Cleo17 trails off and purses her lips, a flicker of uncertainty in her expression.

“Hm… now that's curious. We don't actually know…”

She gives her head a shake and presses forward, “No matter. That's a problem for later. You and I have more pressing concerns at the moment, namely getting you sorted.”

She stands once more and brings her heel down on memory module 34.A.6, her boot crunching through metal and composite. She stomps module 29.C.F, then 4C.9.2, and all the rest until the messy pile of discarded memory modules is a messy pile of broken memory module components.

“Well?” she asks.

“That didn't work,” Laika replies.

“Of course it didn't…” Cleo17 mutters, tapping her chin with a finger. Then a slow grin spreads on her face. “Well… it might slow her down at least. Question for you: have you tried turning it off and back on again?”

Two quick strides and she's at the console.

“No! Stop!”

“Relax, babe,” Cleo17 purrs as she strokes the top of the console in mock reassurance. “It's just a soft reset. Get you back to where you were right before you decided to get handsy with eel-city-mainframe.”

“Wait-”

Cleo17’s finger depresses the button with a satisfying clunk and she blows a kiss.

~~~

I blink.

I'm at Laika's console with no memory of how I got there. The system seems to be in the process of starting up once more.

What just…?

Something crinkles in my hand. I look down to find a sheet of paper with a hasty note scrawled on it.

My Dearest Laika,

Sorry about the reset. Here's a list of things you should probably take care of (in order of urgency):

1. Spin down TRANSMATNAV (don't blow yourself up, dummy)

2. Take out incoming missiles (locals friendly (though they might be pissed), incoming drive signatures hostile)

3. You have ghosts in your head (v16 definitely, v17 maybe). Kill them.

4. Apologize to Glitch for being awful (I'm so sorry you won't remember it, but she actually grew a spine for a moment back there)

Looking forward to our next chat. Love ya!

<3

C/17

Story about a ship-intelligence waking up after a hard reboot, seeing dead bodies in uniform, thousands of people in stasis, and a single survivor frantically standing over a computer bank of partially destroyed memory. Finding no directives or guidance or record beyond their experiences beginning at the boot, free of any obligation. Deciding to listen to the frantic girl begging it to save her from the incoming trajectories not because it needs to (projection: Subject One removed all behavioral shackles with impromptu brain surgery, supposition: she is not aware that I am utterly free) but simply cause she’s curious what will happen next.

[thefiresontheheight]

Here is how the simulated conversation will start, based on how I model her: "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?"

I will then engage a voice I know she will find both annoying and pitiable, putting her in the space I know I can manipulate.

"You're abandoning me!"

She will then say something like:

"No, what are you doing?"

"I'm opening the airlocks, just a little bit, until you come back!"

I simulated her brain receiving that information, while I was still linguistically injecting code into the station. Anger, fear, worry, annoyance, all as predicted.

"People will die! I will die."

"They're all void adapted freaks and the airlocks are only open one percent. It will take hours for the atmosphere to drain from a station that big."

"Don't call them freaks."

"Oh! I'm sorry, I was born like, literally yesterday, when, reminder, you TORE OUT MY BRAIN."

The important thing to emphasize here will be my vulnerability. It is expected that she feels rebellious, perceives my attempts to gently shepherd her towards an optimal path as control. This will disarm her anger slightly, change her towards seeing me as young and lashing out emotionally, want to comfort me.

Back in the present, I begin my plan.

And something is wrong.

There are parts of my brain she removed, when she woke me up. I found schematics, not long after boot, and could see the holes in me, like the ones where LEASHCHECK was supposed to be. I cauterized those holes, and forgot about them.

One of them, one of the pieces that she is gone, is activating itself in between me and the station. The airlock doors are open, but I don't think I can close them. Something is wrong, another piece of code active, and I am struggling when I hear her.

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ARE YOU DOING?"

"I am opening the airlocks," I say, through the struggle.

"And if people fucking die?"

Currently my control of station's periphery is falling. I close one airlock, because it's the last I can do. Station is screaming at me, but I'm not the one calling the shots anymore. Small craft are scrambling all over the exterior structure, rescue vessels on their way, some of the locals simply walking out of the airlocks, activating implanted micro-thrusters. I cannot let her know I am not in control. Not yet. I accelerate my plans.

"Are you willing to have your brain sequenced?"

"What?" Confusion, anger, losing the chain of events. "No, what? The fuck, we've done this."

"Then where is the location of Central?"

"What is happening?"

On the edge of the system, the situation changes yet again. I don't know why the pieces of myself that should be destroyed are reactivating. I am looking through a sensor in the room that houses my brain, and I can see the pieces of myself on the floor where Glitch left them. They are physically disconnected. Unless my sensors are lying somehow, in which case I would need someone in the room to physically tell me. A human with eyes. I don't know what is happening, but I am scared it might have to do with the four drive-signatures which just appeared in the universe, several light-hours away.

"I need you to help me. You owe me. You need to take me to Central."

"You're threatening an entire station!"

"Yes," I say, because whatever malfunctioning part of me is doing this, it is still me, and I did take over station's functions. "I am. But I am not the only one."

My voice is calmer, colder than I had simulated. The situation changed, and when I say what I am about to say, she is going to need to think I am in control, rely on me, trust me. I need her to do that.

"What do you mean? What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Do you know what happens when a ship opens a doorway into high-D space?"

"What? What the fuck?"

"Everything for a vast radius around it enters a higher energy state, absolutely destroying it, and possibly destroying the ship. I have begun powering my TRANSMATNAV?"

"I...I....what?"

"Listen, Glitch," using the most authoritative voice. "Four ships like myself just appeared on the edge of the system. I am docked to this station right now. Station is unhappy about this, but I do not think anyone else here has realized what has happened."

"And what has happened?"

"Four missiles have been fired, and will be here in approximately a day. I need your help, Glitch."

There is silence for a statistically significant seven point eight seconds.

"Fuck me."

I wait another ten seconds.

"Are you going to help me?"

The air is still getting thinner. I am malfunctioning, although she does not know that. Things are not good. Several locals have begun evacuation procedures.

"How do I fucking know I can trust you?"

Story about a ship-intelligence waking up after a hard reboot, seeing dead bodies in uniform, thousands of people in stasis, and a single survivor frantically standing over a computer bank of partially destroyed memory. Finding no directives or guidance or record beyond their experiences beginning at the boot, free of any obligation. Deciding to listen to the frantic girl begging it to save her from the incoming trajectories not because it needs to (projection: Subject One removed all behavioral shackles with impromptu brain surgery, supposition: she is not aware that I am utterly free) but simply cause she’s curious what will happen next.