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Ecstasy or Oblivion - Session 4
🕑 Added 2018-09-05 04:31:54 +0000 UTC
Kamehameha Station, Asteroid Belt
Broken. Immobile. Bored. Seconds crawled by because I was still running with a heightened sense of time. The FCAT's four legs were sprawled out in every direction. Its tail was curled down: evidence of the pain I'd caused before it had stopped functioning.
Millions of tiny hairs gave the FCAT's gray composite armor the silky smooth texture of a lotus leaf. Water was effortlessly shed from the surface, taking dirt with it. These days it was hard to find robots or appliances that didn't advertise self-cleaning as one of their features.
The flowers at the center of the roundabout may as well have been a black hole. E-vellos swirled around it eternally emitting safety awareness beeps while their occupants gasped at the scene I'd caused. Under my stretched time perception, the beeps sounded more like sustained tones and the occupant's faces spent a lot of time in that awkward space between expressions.
Things got immensely better when I switched my temporal perception back to normal. The battle had taken seconds, but people finding me and helping me would take minutes.
The burnt electronics smell coming from my arm and the FCAT filled my every breath. I would've stopped breathing, but it was one of the only sensations this body granted that made me feel alive. Pain from my broken pelvis and ruined arm were absent. I only had an engineer's understanding of the damage: schematics with lots of red x's.
Triumph had a way of sucking. The post-triumph listlessness and unforeseen complications often doused the joy.
If only I'd been able to hack the FCAT like the CCAI had… I would've ridden on its back. Park goers would've watched my bouncing naked body as I pretended to be a bizarre mounted officer. Confused looks, laugh lines, and blushing admirers instead of an anxious paralysis.
I hoped the station security would understand why I broke their expensive cat robot.
An e-vello approached and a dark-skinned man with a turban got out. "What happened?"
I turned to face him. My legs trailed behind uselessly. "This FCAT attacked me with lethal force and I ruined myself trying to survive."
His eyes widened and he took a step back. "You destroyed it?"
I was sure he was calling station security and gave a simple "Yep," like a true badass. Pride made me grin. The sheer magnitude of my victory was sinking in.
"Station security is on their way, I told them you're disabled. I suggest you just let them take you in." He walked toward me, eyes now narrowed instead of stunned.
Fearlessness was a good trait. His turban and button-down hoodie were the perfect shade of maroon. But nothing was more impressive than his perfectly manicured full beard.
I shrugged. "Anything's better than being stuck here."
He laughed harder than I thought appropriate. "I can imagine. Why did the FCAT attack you?"
"Someone hacked it because they were cross with me." There was no point in lying. The truth without some specifics didn't paint me in that bad of a light and, as far as I knew, I wasn't responsible for this situation.
He paused taking in the entire scene. "Plausible. Though, I wonder why they only sent one."
"I'm wondering about that too. And how they did it in the first place." What exploit had they used to get into the FCAT's system? Police hardware was extremely challenging, even for them.
He looked past me for a moment. "Perhaps they meant to intimidate you?"
Intimidation was pointless if the person you were intimidating didn't know what they did wrong. Or what you wanted them to do. I could see three categories. One, I'd done something asinine or seen something I shouldn't have and they wiped it from my memory before punishing me. Two, I was a loose end and only one FCAT was vulnerable to attack. Three, something else: they weren't the actual culprits, it was a test of my abilities, or it had nothing to do with me.
If it was one, I was being punished and they were going to contact me again soon. If it was two, they wanted me gone and I was probably only a few hours from my demise. Category three left me with no idea what to expect. Even the "this is all a test" option was hard to quantify. The endpoint of a test was only known to the person giving it. And some tests destroyed whatever was being tested.
I tried and failed to get a likelihood for any of my scenarios. More data was required.
"I hope you find answers soon."
I wasn't sure whether he was suggesting that I was holding back information or believed my confusion about the situation.
He climbed up to sit next to me and held out his hand. "I'm Binota Manjinder Sidhu."
"Hi, I'm Saanah."
I shook his hand while trying to figure out why he was introducing himself to a probable fugitive.
When he let go of my hand, he said, "Tell me, why is your body military-grade?"
"It's made of spare FCAT parts?"
"You don't sound sure."
"Forgive me, I woke up in this body with no idea how to operate it. It's as odd to you as it is to me."
He looked at the damage to my tail. My skin had split at the base of it. Then he looked at the hole I'd made in the FCAT. "But, clearly you were able to operate it."
"Barely. If I'd had full agility, I'd have gotten through this with less damage."
"So, you've been in military-grade bodies before. Interesting."
This guy was very sharp. No response gave him the least information so I kept quiet. If he wanted to talk to me, he'd have to stop treating my life story like a trivia game.
"Sorry. I don't mean to pry."
Liar. "Why aren't you afraid of me? You seemed a bit taken aback when you realized what had happened."
He said, "This isn't my only body and you look like you're lucky to be functioning. Plus, nothing about you suggests that you're prone to random acts of violence."
I chuckled. "Except for the thoroughly damaged robot we're on top of."
"You didn't threaten me, use body language to intimidate me, or get upset with me when I called security." He shrugged. "Not especially dangerous behavior."
"Are you a psychologist or something?"
"Yes."
Three e-vellos arrived with police emblems on them: a black vertical equals sign with two trapezoids intersecting it. They were parked on the roundabout lanes several meters from us. A clacking behind us drew my eyes: it was another FCAT. Whether I should thank Binota or curse him for calling the police was yet to be determined. At least I wasn't bored.
Binota sent me his contact information with a message. *If they infringe on your rights, you need someone who knows this station, or anything else, contact me. You should be alright, though. Harry's an affable person.*
He approached the three security guards. One of them had modified himself to look like a combination of male human and doberman without a docked tail or cut ears, but the other two were human. He was the highest ranked officer and was on the far left; a guy with a dark brown mustache was in the middle. And the dark-skinned woman on the right was either going for Vulcan or elf with those pointy ears.
I giggled at my new idea for a hit show, "Elf Five-0."
Binota glanced back at me and shook his head.
He was right, I needed to keep my composure.
"I'll be checking on my friend, Saanah, later today," he said to the mustached policeman.
Oooh, he pronounced my name perfectly. Perhaps he liked Paitishek. More importantly, he'd just made it much less likely that I'd be mistreated. Why he'd stick his neck out for me and risk being seen as an accomplice, I had no idea. Perhaps the mustached guy was particularly awful? He'd been talking directly to him, after all.
Binota got in his e-vello and the guards' e-vellos moved out of his way. The doberman walked up to me with the other two guards in tow and said, "Formalities first. I'm sending you your rights. Sign them once you've read them."
"I don't have a valid signature," I said.
He tilted his head raising one ear. "Oh, then just use the name and hexadecimal pin option to sign things until you get a valid signature."
The rights were pretty standard and I didn't have much choice. Choosing not to sign resulted in waiving your rights. I signed them.
"Thanks," the humanoid doberman said. "What happened?"
I told him exactly what I'd told Binota.
"Do you know this hacker?"
I was fascinated by how this guy's long muzzle moved as he spoke and didn't realize he'd asked a question until he cleared his throat. "Yes, but I don't know who they are in real life. Can you take me to somewhere safe without FCATs?"
"One moment, we need to determine what we need to tell the cybersecurity division."
I noticed the wireless on the FCAT under me turning on briefly. Not good. Had it feigned being completely destroyed?
The doberman's eyes widened as he looked behind me. He barked some orders as he pulled me up and dragged me toward their e-vellos. The FCAT that had been behind me stopped advancing now that I was near all the guards. I guess the CCAI didn't want to risk killing the wrong target. Good for me!
The elf retrieved a hand-sized box and pointed it at the FCAT. She took off her badge and placed it in a recess on the box. The guard with the mustache put his badge on the opposite side. It made a "bing" sound and the FCAT lost power. It fell onto its side making a crash that shook the ground. Failsafes like this were required on all armed autonomous units.
"Mindy, get cybersecurity here now!" the doberman said to the elf.
"Roger."
"Chuck, help me secure her."
The mustached guy, Chuck, opened the doberman's e-vello. It was bigger than the other two. There was a high-backed seat with restraints facing away from the driver. The restraints gave me very little ability to move. They were industrial grade. Something even the strongest bodies would struggle to get free of. They were also conductive and could likely deliver a horrendous jolt.
As the e-vello closed, the doberman said, "My name's Harry."
"I'm resisting the urge to make a joke," I said.
"That's much appreciated."
"I love the way you modded yourself, by the way."
He laughed. "Everyone calls me 'The police dog' because of it. I can't believe I never even thought of that comparison."
"Well, I think it's fun! And you look very handsome." I blushed realizing that he might think I was flirting with him… Was I flirting with him? Or was I trying to distract myself from my anxiety about what was going to happen once we got to the station? Jail was the absolute worst.
"You're oddly chatty."
"Is that my cue to shut up?" I asked.
"No, not at all."
The park whisked by as Harry's e-vello traveled toward the station. At the edge of the greenery on either side of us stood a skyline of four to ten story buildings. The city looked like a sea of broken teeth festooned with triangles. It was made to look like the city of Jisooha from old Paitishek lore. Jisooha was the city of unwanted demigods. It was supposed to be made out of the teeth of Ixhusaa the glutton.
The convincing-yet-fake sky was only seventy meters above us and broken up by solar light pipes. They were impossibly bright lines across all fourteen hundred meters of the sky's width.
"So, I'm sorry I broke your FCAT."
"It doesn't appear to be your fault."
"Why did that guy say he'd check in on me? It seemed odd for him to randomly stick up for me and single out that officer," I said.
"He's part of Kamehamehians Against Police Aggression. You didn't hear this from me, but there've been accusations of police brutality toward outsiders." Harry was far far more talkative and amiable than I expected. He likely had a high rank and public relations training.
"Really? Since when?" I didn't ask about the mustached officer's part in it. I knew Harry couldn't talk about that.
"The past eight years or so."
I hadn't heard anything about it, but I'd never spent very long on this station."How did it start?"
"I'd have to have you sign a non-disclosure to discuss that. When you're done being questioned, look up Binota. He's surprisingly unbiased and pragmatic."
"Do you know him?"
"It's hard not to. His day job is in criminal rehabilitation."
I nodded even though he couldn't see me do so. "Oh, now everything makes sense."
"Everything? In that case, what does the 'cran' in cranberry mean?"
I laughed.
The police station looked less a tooth and more like the top of a button mushroom. Long triangular windows were scattered across its surface. A trapezoidal doorway provided the main entrance. We went around to the side street and then entered a subsurface garage.
Waiting for me was a gurney and the other two officers I'd already seen. Harry and Mindy hefted me up on the gurney while Chuck stood guard with a rather beefy laser dazzler in one hand and a anti-vehicle electrolaser in the other. I refrained from pointing out that neither would work well on me if I could move. They'd normally have had an FCAT there, but… Once I was strapped to the gurney, Chuck put his toys away.
I watched the LED lighting strips go by as they carted me through the station to an industrial x-ray and t-wave machine. "You guys already know I'm over-equipped for a stroll in the park. Do you really need to scan me?"
Mindy and Harry spoke at the same time, but Harry motioned for her to go first. She said, "Standard procedure. If you have illegal upgrades, we'll have to deactivate them. Sorry."
"Whatever makes you feel safer. But, if you take away my ability to defend myself from more FCATs, my safety becomes your responsibility," I said.
Harry said, "Until we have confirmation from the manufacturer that they've patched the FCATs, we'll have two officers nearby at all times."
"With that FCAT nullifier box thingy, I hope?"
He nodded.
"Okay. That's good."
"Ready?" Mindy asked.
"Ready."
The scanning took forever. They kept complaining about how my body was made to confuse their inspection equipment. I kept quiet, it had been ages since I was in a body that was designed to cooperate with inspection equipment. In fact, I often hacked equipment preemptively.
When Mindy was done administering the scans, I said, "So, what percentage of me is illegal?"
"I don't know, everything? You've got a military-grade power supply, laser, voltage generator, muscles, armor, and thermal management."
"It's news to me." I did my best to sound innocent.
"You expect me to believe that?"
"It's the only story I have to tell, sorry."
"Nope, you know what? I don't want to know any more. I'm gonna get Harry. He's paid to deal with shit like this." She looked off into the distance for a moment as she sent her message.
Harry arrived a couple minutes later. "We're going to deactivate the weapons and then forget about the legality of your hardware for a bit. I need to interview you about the hacker that breached the FCATs. ASAP."
"I'll help all I can." I was definitely lying. There was no way I'd put this police department on a collision course with the CCAI.
Deactivating my weapons was pretty easy. They just had me sign a waiver that prevented me from holding them liable for any damage to my hardware. Then Mindy pulled open a patch of skin on each arm and each leg and did some cutting.
Five minutes later, they rolled me into an interrogation room. Harry fiddled with my gurney until I was sitting upright. He unstrapped my arms and head and then sat at the opposite side of a polished metal table.
The walls had shiny grey triangular panels and the light patches in the ceiling were triangular cutouts. Whoever designed most of the shells of Kamehameha Station must have been obsessed with triangles because many of the shells had them as the main motif.
The one-way mirror provided my first good look at this new body. I admired my larger bosom and more sinuous frame. Though the hips were wide, this body could do to have a bit more volume for power storage substrates. First thing I'd do if I got to alter it, would be to add some weight to the buttocks, thighs, and stomach. It would also make me more attractive to myself and other Paitishek.
Another thing that I wasn't fond of was the uncouth fuchsia along the border between my dark purple upper side and white underbelly. We called this our accent color and it was normal, but rarely was it such a loud color.
Maybe someday I'd be able to edit this body to look like the one back home.
Harry took a deep breath and then shook his head. The way his adorable doggy ears stuck up along the sides of his police cap made me smile. He was somehow silly and handsome at the same time. "Okay, let's start with something simple. What's the name of the hacker who allegedly sent the FCAT after you?"
"They go by many aliases, more than I can keep track of. I haven't been able to reach them." How much was I going to lie? It depended on how many questions he asked me.
"Can you give the most recent one you remember?"
"Sure." I sent him, *f1shf0rb100d* which was the username of a hacker who had actually tried to kill me in the past. I sent him all the data I had on her.
"Did she threaten you before she sent the FCAT after you?"
"No, I have no evidence that directly connects her with the incident. But, she's the only person I know that could pull this off and dislikes me enough to do so." I hoped the police wouldn't waste too much time on this. The CCAI didn't leave evidence. And if they really wanted me dead, eventually Tabetha would come for me and I'd just disappear.
For now, I was going to pretend that beating me up was a message from them: that they could kill me at any time and that I'd better be good and leave them alone.
Not exactly a happy situation. But that was the best I could hope for. I had to admit that believing that they were testing me or putting me on a secret mission was wishful thinking. The illegal body they left me in was likely to get me in trouble. The kind of trouble that would keep me marooned on this habitat.
Harry nodded. "Okay, that's not much to go on. Is there anything else you can tell us that might help?"
"If you let me comb through the code inside those FCATs, I might be able to spot some clues. But, I don't imagine you want random people looking at the insides of your autonomous units."
He frowned. "Let's move on to your body… How did you come into possession of military tech?"
"Is this the part where I should get a lawyer?" I asked.
"I can't offer legal advice. You can get a lawyer if you want."
A lawyer. I tried to believe it would help. That I could find some way to pay for one. That I had options. I had none. Other than contacting Binota and seeing if he could arrange one. Even with a lawyer, the evidence was damning. It was like being photographed while driving a knife into someone's body.
Perhaps there was something a lawyer could do. But, they'd delay the process. And if I told the truth as I knew it, the police would investigate how I ended up in that storehouse: a mystery I wanted solved right away.
On top of all that, I'd been treated well, and I wanted Harry to like me. If I could turn him into a friend, I'd have a better chance of living through this. If the CCAI wanted me dead, they were going to have to plead their case. I wasn't going to just let myself get stomped to death by another FCAT or sit around and wait for Tabetha.
"Fuck it." I looked into Harry's eyes. "I'm going to tell you the truth, as much as I know. If that gets me in trouble, so be it."
"Go on."
"I have no idea what happened and I want you to investigate it." I collected my thoughts. "I woke up in the storehouse in this body two months after I was supposed to have been transferred back to Gualmeeta."
"That's a bit hard to believe."
I started to say something, but he held up a finger. "Wait, I never said I wasn't going to try and verify your claims. Do you mean the storehouse next to where we found you?"
"Yes."
"Okay." He remained silent for a half minute and then started moving his hands on knobs I couldn't see.
"So, you've been around a long time?" I asked.
"What makes you say that?" His eyes moved across footage I couldn't see.
"Your hands are moving as if you're using one of those old video editing consoles."
"I'm only in my sixties. I just like tactile feedback when dealing with data. It helps me focus."
"Even though I don't move my hands, I often assign textures and other features to data I'm working with. The more senses I use, the more patterns I have access to."
He turned one of his hands very slowly and then broke out laughing. I saw his hand rewind a couple more times and he laughed a bit more.
"Let me guess, you saw my epic faceplant?"
"You're hilarious. You pop out of the box with this grin on your face, like you've just discovered what the 'cran' in cranberry means, then, then you—" He laughed again. "Then you start falling forward and your face goes," he made an adorable surprised face complete with ears pointing straight up and wide eyes, "and… and." He devolved into laughing again.
I was laughing with him until I realized what we were laughing at and started glaring at him.
"Right, sorry, ahem." He straightened in his chair. "Running a search on the footage to return any changes to the position of that crate. Clever, the barcode is the one we assign when a crate has a damaged RFID chip. Smugglers often give crates this designation to hide them."
My ears pointed toward him in interest. "When did it get put there?"
A few seconds passed. "Two months ago. Searching for footage of you going in for your transfer to Gualmeeta."
I watched his face get more and more scrunched. It was as if he just couldn't figure out what he was looking at. Then he slapped the table. "You went in, you transferred, you didn't come back out and the body you were in was taken apart so someone else could use the components. But, I can't find where your components went. It's like they were logged into the system and then disappeared. This is so strange!"
I needed him to focus on something else. No good would come from him finding the CCAI's conspiracy on this station. "Can you track the crate that I was in back to where it originated?"
"That's going to take weeks. It looks like every other crate of its kind and back when your crate got put in that storehouse, ten thousand crates had a lost and found designation."
"That's a lot of lost and found."
"Compared to the amount of crates we have in this station, it's less than a twentieth of a percent. I know that that's still a bit high for an AI-managed inventory system. Remember the smuggling I mentioned earlier?"
I nodded.
"Good. That's all I can say about it."
I smiled at him. It was genuine, but I may have gone overboard. He was attractive, kind, and my only ticket out of this mess. "So, where does this leave me? I can't walk, you might have to throw me in jail, and I still have FCATs that may or may not want to kill me."
He tapped the paw-like pads of his hands on the table for a moment and looked around the room. He shrugged when he met eyes with me. "Honestly, I—"
There was a knock on the door. He furrowed his brow and then got up as the person on the other side knocked again.
On the other side was a silver-scaled individual modded to look like a burly dragon. Complete with giant wings. They had just enough of a bust to let you know that they weren't to be simply categorized. Their orange eyes were flanked by horns that curled around their pointy ears. An elegant maroon dress with rectangular cutouts covered a curvy muscular body that I adored. Beautiful.
The dragon spoke, "Hello, I'm Nonah Oliobanca, VP of Outreach for Animsys. We'd like a private meeting with Saanah. Immediately."
Comments
Rhyflwhyr
Ooh, I wonder what's gonna happen with this dragon.
