TUELLER: “We can’t signal for our ride without fearing that we’ll alert the AI.”
TUELLER: “And if that happens we’re all dead.”
TUELLER: “So we need to hunt down and fuck up that piece of shit Ghost. For us. For Noma.”
TUELLER: “We can’t find the ansible. I searched, until I realized how fucking stupid that was.”
TUELLER: “Like there’d be the glow of Cherenkov radiation, I’d hit it with a sledgehammer, and we’d go on our merry way.”
MILLICENT: “It’s a nice thought.”
MILLICENT: “But I agree, I think it’s time we take on the AI.”
MILLICENT: “Kill or capture?”
TUELLER: “Fuck him up and flush him down.”
MILLICENT: “I vote capture, it leaves us with more options down the line.”
MILLICENT: “Cap’n?”
ALEJO: Alejo sighs. “Fuck. Capture. We need answers.”
STORY: It’s late. You’ve been planning, then debating, then scrapping the plans, then getting stuck on a detail too long, then breaking for tea, then back to it again, again, again. It’s been days of this. Everyone’s tired. At Tux’s suggestion, the five of you are sitting down to try again over homemade “lasagna”. The vegetables are fresh, though the noodles and dairy… you’d rather not think about the source of. At least he made it vegetarian.
STORY: Calixta rests her head on the table.
ALEJO: Alejo finishes his and then reaches over to steal the last few bites from Calixta’s plate, while she’s not looking.
STORY: She pushes her plate towards you without lifting her head.
ALEJO: He smiles and takes it. Then gives her a little “thank you” pat on the shoulder. “Really good, Tux. Thanks for setting this up.”
MILLICENT: Millie is lightly dozing with her head straight up on the back of her chair.
STORY: Tux nods.
STORY: He picks up his plate, returning it to the sink in the basement cafeteria the five of you have claimed as your late night hangout. “I still think the space balloon idea had potential.”
TUELLER: Tueller sits back. He has cleaned his plate with absolutely no indication of hesitation about the source.
ALEJO: “Always wanted to be an aeronaut.”
TUELLER: “Maybe it’s my year of intensive therapy but I am having a hard time being impulsive and decisive on an idea with that…tentative a chance of survival.”
STORY: “I didn’t say it was perfect.”
TUELLER: “Sure sure sure.”
TUELLER: “We have some significant things to decide here, though.”
TUELLER: “Kill or capture the AI.”
TUELLER: “Try to get the ansible, whatever it is, and wherever it is, to shut down the AI’s phone home capability.”
TUELLER: “Not that we’re likely to be able to use the ansible, wherever and whatever it is, to do anything other than to send colorful profanity to The Collective.”
MILLICENT: Do I think the ansible is how they communicated through every human communication device at once?
ALEJO: “Do we know that? That the ansible is only good for Collective calls?”
TUELLER: “I am not the genius here. I assumed that since they weren’t using it to communicate to us that we couldn’t count on being able to use it to communicate to anyone else.”
TUELLER: “I am just making assumptions, not conclusions at this point.”
STORY: Millie, potentially, though it was all within the solar system so it could have just been a really powerful wave radio.
STORY: Calixta mutters into the table. “It could be half of a pair of walkie talkies.”
STORY: “Incomplete tech, something that only makes calls to a matching receiver.” She raises her head. “We have no idea, because we have no idea how they built it.”
TUELLER: “So I am recommending we not make it a linchpin of our plans.”
TUELLER: “Suggesting, at least.”
TUELLER: Tueller sounds less confident than you’re used to seeing him as.
STORY: Calixta stands, leaning against a wall, picking at her cuticles. “I just want to say again… we could just leave. Just us five.”
TUELLER: “Even that is difficult, but…I’m not sure that would save us.”
ALEJO: Alejo stands and takes his plates to the sink.
TUELLER: “The people we’d leave behind wouldn’t just continue doing work. The Collective would find out. And then they’d act.”
STORY: “We could convince them.”
ALEJO: “Alright. Someone remind me, what do we know or think we know about what the Collective wants.”
MILLICENT: Millie’s head jerks a little as she wakes from her semi-nap.
MILLICENT: She rubs her eyes.
MILLICENT: “I think the Collective wants security.”
STORY: Calixta shrugs. “Wiped,” she points to her brain.
TUELLER: “Cali, I get your concerns, but that doesn’t work for me.”
TUELLER: “I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I think that doesn’t work for anyone else here.”
MILLICENT: “Noma, dear. I can’t leave. Not until I’ve seen this through.”
ALEJO: “Security from what? Didn’t we think that the Collective was all-powerful? Wouldn’t security suggest that they aren’t?” He returns to the table. and sits.
MILLICENT: “I think there’s more to the story of the Collective than they’ve told us embodied sentients.”
ALEJO: “It feels like we’re planning without knowing what we’re fighting or negotiating with. I mean, hell, I don’t know if we’re even gearing up to fight or negotiate.”
MILLICENT: “They’ve made an army of elite, isolated sentients. Their opening gambit is a threat. Even contacting them is grounds for species termination.”
MILLICENT: “I think they’re afraid.”
MILLICENT: “I think they made the sentient RAM as a back-up to a home world or space station somewhere. There must be some beginning to all this.”
MILLICENT: “I think they’re afraid that location will be revealed.”
STORY: Tux shakes his head. “That’s pure conjecture.”
MILLICENT: “This is pure speculation, of course.”
MILLICENT: “Jinx.”
STORY: “Respectfully, Millie, I think you think that because it makes this easier if you have a target.”
STORY: “What if they just live in the brains of those people?” He gestures toward the part of the base with the pods. “What if they’re waiting in all our brains?”
STORY: “Just there while we sleep, floating around? How do we know they don’t already know what we’re planning?”
TUELLER: “That’s…I think what the other version of you was getting at.”
MILLICENT: “Maybe. Maybe disconnection is what they’re afraid of.”
TUELLER: “I didn’t really follow him. Yous and I…as yous have pointed out, I’m not as smart as you so I’m not always even following on yours level.”
MILLICENT: “Tueller, are you so tired your accent is coming out?”
MILLICENT: “That’s adorable!”
TUELLER: “No. Just trying out new tenses for duped people.”
TUELLER: “Not tenses. I might be a little tired.” he concedes.
STORY: “Singular, please.” Tux looks seriously at you.
TUELLER: Tueller nods apologetically towards Tux.
ALEJO: “Look. We need more information. How do we get it?”
ALEJO: “Before we make a galaxy ending move, we need to have a sense of what leverage, if any, we might actually have.”
MILLICENT: “Well, we’ve got the information they would kill civilizations to hide. And we’ve potentially got a way to share it with everyone.”
STORY: “Conjecture.”
STORY: Tux again.
ALEJO: “What information? What do we really know? We know the relays copy people. They also seem to genuinely make interstellar travel possible. It’s not pretty. I agree it’s actually kind horrific, especially given the people RAM. But what more do we actually know?”
STORY: Calixta thinks. “We know they’re keeping it all secret, and that so far they’ve either been successful or any civilization that is aware has chosen to keep it secret as well.”
ALEJO: Alejo touches his nose. “Yeah! Which suggests that Millie is on to something. Secrets only matter if someone is afraid of the truth. If the Collective was all powerful, they wouldn’t be afraid.”
MILLICENT: “And we know they’ve built an elite force of isolated sentient slaves to combat something? Presumably anyone who would expose it or take issue.”
ALEJO: “What are they afraid of? And why?”
TUELLER: “We know the version you met in your dream, Alejo, was pretty threatening and also afraid of Tux.”
MILLICENT: “Yes, that would indicate that perhaps the Weave is where their biggest secret is.”
MILLICENT: “Perhaps they are fully living in the sentient dream computers.”
TUELLER: “If they’re preparing armies, that at least indicates that they’re not at the ‘make your star malfunction and explode’ stage of civilization, as well. I hope.”
MILLICENT: “That’s a real burr in your butt these days, Tueller. Residual family guilt?”
ALEJO: Alejo is nodding. Then he stops and puzzles up his brow. “I agree with that,” he points at Tueller, “But what do you mean sentient dream computers?” He looks at Millie.
TUELLER: Tueller ignores Millie pointedly.
ALEJO: “The people RAM?”
TUELLER: And looks a little hurt.
STORY: Tux sighs. “Your brain, Alejo, mine, all of ours are computers. They could be using all of ours, not just the ones in the tanks.”
MILLICENT: “Yes. That’s where they’re existing, right? They’re living in the brains of dreaming sentients who are connected to the Weave.”
MILLICENT: “Those brains, all stitched together, make a gigantic network where the Collective can operate without a need for hardware.”
MILLICENT: “Where Tux saw something he shouldn’t have in the Weave, it. Hey, it must have been something the Collective didn’t want him to see.”
MILLICENT: “Their secret?”
TUELLER: “Are you…trying to convince us to go back into the Weave?”
ALEJO: “I think that’s our move. We’ve got to figure that out. Right?”
STORY: Calixta sighs unhappily.
STORY: “I was worried that’s where we would end up.”
ALEJO: Alejo looks at her.
TUELLER: Tueller looks at her, “I wasn’t. I didn’t think about it until now. But I fucking should have been.”
TUELLER: “I….” Tueller is silent for a bit.
TUELLER: “I don’t like the Weave, that’s for fucking sure.”
STORY: “And you don’t have a grell.”
TUELLER: “Well…”
ALEJO: “Well, that’s not entirely true.”
MILLICENT: Curious head tilt
TUELLER: “Not here.”
TUELLER: “But a phone call away.”
TUELLER: “Hopefully.”
ALEJO: “Did I hear that he’s with Ryo?”
STORY: Tux looks confused. “Who?”
ALEJO: “The kid I told you about.” Alejo gives Tux a quick smile. “The kid you don’t remember.”
ALEJO: “Trouble is, if we go back to the Weave, how do we make sure we can get back out? And how do we keep the Collective, if that’s the entity that I talked with, from knowing what we’re up to?”
TUELLER: “So this is academic without a Grell. Except to say that we have an AI on the station who might just be hanging out in the giant networked drive of thousands of people.”
STORY: Calixta rubs her hands over her face, taking a deep breath.
TUELLER: “So we lure it to a honeypot we don’t have, or capture an ansible we don’t know, or…I don’t know, just run away.”
TUELLER: “I’m useless here guys. Sorry.”
ALEJO: Alejo looks at Calixta. “What’s your proposal, Cali? What does running away buy us?”
STORY: Calixta looks unhappy. “If you want to be lucid in the Weave, which I want to say for the record is suicide, I might be able to help. Running away means we live another day.”
STORY: “I FAR PREFER running away.”
TUELLER: Tueller just looks on.
ALEJO: “For the sake of argument, tell us more about the suicide plan. How would you help?”
STORY: “We’d have to design and fabricate a machine that intensifies delta waves, and you’d have to go to sleep inside it. I keep the AI from spiking you before you get anywhere. But again. This is SUICIDE. You’ll never find anything out there, and if you do, you’ll never get back out.”
TUELLER: “It’s good to have another bad plan, at least.”
ALEJO: “And the run away and live another day plan? You’re advocating for closing our eyes and pretending we don’t know about any of this?”
STORY: “What choice do we have?”
STORY: “We’re beat. So yes, we run.”
ALEJO: Alejo puts his hand up to avoid preempt Millie’s objection.
MILLICENT: Millie acknowledges
ALEJO: “Why’d you come here?” He tilts his head at Calixta. “I mean, it feels like you’ve accomplished quite a lot. Including the good fortune of finding me. Why do you think we’re beaten?”
ALEJO: “At a loss for next moves, sure. But beaten?”
ALEJO: “We’re not dead. Yet. And, at the moment, we’re safe. Ish.”
STORY: “FIND ME AN OUT.”
STORY: Calixta is temporarily unchill, and paces the room, putting a hand up to opt out.
STORY: Tux picks up. “She’s got a point. We’ve been debating this for days and we have nothing.”
TUELLER: Tueller gets up, takes two steps towards her, and then stops and sits back down, with pursed lips.
ALEJO: “We have. But, Tux, you were a fucking janitor. So, your situation isn’t worse, for sure.”
STORY: “Your point?”
STORY: “No, you know what, arguably, I am worse off.”
STORY: “I was a janitor who thought I was in some kind of weird scary jail. Now I’m burdened with the biggest fuckin secret in the universe, one that WILL get me killed one way or another, and I’m still stuck in this fucking place.”
ALEJO: Alejo starts to say something. Then stops. He looks to Millie and Tueller. “Why’d you come here? What did you want from this when you came?”
TUELLER: “I came because the Doc asked.”
MILLICENT: “I wanted to tell everyone the truth and let them make up their own minds.”
MILLICENT: “I still do.”
MILLICENT: “I spent a long time believing that my intellect gave me the ability to choose for everyone. I’d like to say that I needed that reassurance after Nikau died, but really, it was there all along. I’ve changed my mind. A cover-up, a cost this big. It requires the input of the galaxy. And we happen to be in the position to do something about it. I think that gives us a responsibility to act.”
ALEJO: Alejo nods.
STORY: Calixta speaks calmly. “It’s what Tux said. Telling anyone does not give them a choice. It conscripts them in the guaranteed war the Collective is bringing.”
STORY: “The knowledge itself does that. We tell, or we don’t, but no one but us gets a choice.”
MILLICENT: “Maybe. Or maybe it puts all sentients on an even playing field to discuss terms.”
STORY: “It’s still conscription.”
MILLICENT: “The Collective don’t want a slave, subjugated population or they would have made us so from the beginning.”
STORY: “Millie, do not fool yourself. You can justify your choice, but you are not giving anyone else one.”
MILLICENT: “They don’t have one now, Noma.”
ALEJO: “Guaranteed war? You think it’s a war regardless of what we do?”
ALEJO: “Or only a war if we spill?”
STORY: “I think if we run and we keep this secret, we might live. And so might everyone else.”
STORY: “I could live with that.”
ALEJO: Alejo nods. “That’s a different calculus.”
ALEJO: “Look, I’m not willing to turn my back on what we’ve discovered. But I’m not sure we know enough about what the Collective wants to know whether we should spill the secret, bargain with the Collective, or . . .” He shakes his head. “I think we need to find out if we have any leverage to negotiate with the Collective. And that means we need to know what they’re hiding and why.”
TUELLER: “Doc, you run this base, right?”
TUELLER: “Does that mean you can talk to the base AI?”
TUELLER: “We talk about jumping into the Weave, but we know that we can talk to AIs in easier fashion.” Tueller looks at Cali when he says this.
ALEJO: “Good point.”
MILLICENT: “I doubt the base AI will find the way I took power completely legitimate.”
MILLICENT: “And it might trigger this whole mess we’ve been talking about.”
MILLICENT: “If we could find and take over the ansible before we talked to the AI I’d feel a lot better. Also if we cut it off from base life support first.”
TUELLER: “Okay, my vote is to see if we can find the ansible, and then see if we can isolate or take down the Ghost here.”
MILLICENT: “After that conversation we’ll be on a clock.”
TUELLER: “Disabling or destroying the ansible seems the best bet, though, since apparently human brains are just places for Ghosts to ride?”
MILLICENT: “We don’t know how often the Collective checks in with remote stations, but it’s safe to assume they do.”
STORY: Tux pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay.”
STORY: “What does an ansible look like?”
MILLICENT: “Noma, dear, is any of this ringing a bell?”
TUELLER: “A quantum space transmitter of some sort?”
STORY: Calixta looks at you, annoyed, Millie. “Yeah, I was just holding on to that knowledge for funsies.”
STORY: “I know exactly what we’re looking for an also what to do and I’m just holding it back as a fun quiz.”
TUELLER: “Back when I was in school the theory about faster-than-light communications technology was that it would involve quantum entangled matter that someone would ship to another place and space and use to communicate back and forth with the other side of the entanglement.”
MILLICENT: “Don’t get snippy, dear, it’s a fair question.”
TUELLER: “Something like that might give off some aura. Cherenkov radiation. I don’t know. I wasn’t a quantum engineer.”
ALEJO: Alejo grimaces when Millie says this.
STORY: Tux stands.
STORY: “Hang on.”
STORY: “Shut up.”
STORY: “Everybody shut up and let me think.”
STORY: He closes his eyes.
STORY: “What if we have one?”
ALEJO: “A quantum engineer?”
STORY: “Millie, check this UUID in the computer. EEK-220991-alpha… shit. Six, I think.”
MILLICENT: Millie punches it in
STORY: Nothing.
ALEJO: “Nice one. See, this is more fun than cleaning toilets.”
STORY: “Try four.”
MILLICENT: Millie tries
STORY: Nope.
STORY: “Shit. Alpha alpha six, maybe?”
MILLICENT: Millie tries the new code.
STORY: Ding. It’s one of the frozen bodies. No information on them beyond that.
STORY: Arrival date nine years ago.
ALEJO: “Yes!” Alejo smiles. He looks back and forth between Millie and Tux. Waiting. “Yes. Yes?”
MILLICENT: Do I recognize the name?
STORY: There’s no name.
MILLICENT: “Well, there’s a hit this time.”
MILLICENT: A picture?
TUELLER: “Let’s go see if you recognize him.”
STORY: It’s a UUID and arrival date, and confirmation that the subject is alive and stable.
STORY: Nope.
TUELLER: “Or, you know, just wake him up and ask.”
TUELLER: Tueller looks around the group not moving. “or do we want to start over again and see if we can figure out a completely different way to handle this?”
STORY: Tux laughs. “Where’s his pod?”
ALEJO: “Wake him up!” Alejo stands.
MILLICENT: “I’m for this, but I want to make sure we all understand that this commits us.”
TUELLER: “Kick down the fucking door.”
STORY: Calixta stops leaning. “Not necessarily. I can try to run interference if you’re only thawing one guy.”
MILLICENT: Millie shrugs.
MILLICENT: “Well, their pod isn’t far.”
MILLICENT: “Let’s check them out.”
STORY: The five of you take the elevator up to the right floor. Tux explains on the way. “My quantum engineering professor on Triton. I couldn’t pass the fucking exam, no matter what. I reckon he wouldn’t pass me just so he had someone to think poorly of. I finally swiped the answers. Clever fucker had his deck security keyed to his UUID. You’re lucky I had to memorize it.”
STORY: You arrive at the pod. The man inside is tall, his sleeping face half-visible through the frost inside. Tux peers in. “I can’t be… completely sure, but. That looks right?”
MILLICENT: “Huh. Is there a database of UUIDs on Earth?”
STORY: “Sure, but it’s a galactic crime to hack it. Not that I would know where to find it.”
STORY: “I do, I do know where to find it and how to get in,” he nudges Alejo cheekily.
MILLICENT: Millie sighs, almost happy. “We got it, Tux.”
ALEJO: Alejo smiles back at him. “See. Now you’re having fun.”
ALEJO: “Worse off my ass.”
STORY: Tux smiles. “I am extremely not having fun, I am scared to death, but this is the only way I know not to sit on the ground and shake. Please don’t get me killed.”
MILLICENT: Millie examines the device. Can she figure out how to thaw this guy out safely?
ALEJO: “I got you.”
STORY: Millie, Assessment + Expertise, please
ALEJO: “How’s it look?” Alejo steps up next to her as she examines the device.
MILLICENT: /roll 2d6 + 2
STORY: josh rolled 7 + 2 = 9
STORY: Yes, you think so. He’s gonna need probably a day to warm up and recover before he’s gonna be of any use to you, but you think he’ll survive it if you get the right equipment ready.
MILLICENT: Millie gives some orders to ready a set of quarters and to prepare them to thaw this guy out in them.
ALEJO: Alejo follows Millie’s instructions.
STORY: All set, Millie.
MILLICENT: Millie wakes this guy up
STORY: Calixta assumes you don’t want to get caught and just forgot to tell her, and plugs in to the main system to try to run interference on the AI while you do.
STORY: Okay. Millie, let’s have FA + Expertise to pop this guy, and Command + Interface to see how Calixta does keeping you safe.
MILLICENT: /roll 2d6 + 2
STORY: josh rolled 9 + 2 = 11
MILLICENT: /roll 2d6 + 2
STORY: josh rolled 7 + 2 = 9
MILLICENT: That’s Expertise and Interface in that order, but I’d swap ’em if I could
STORY: Okay! You get Professor Bernard Wong safely out of his pod and into a recovery room, and he’s in perfect health, sleeping it off under a pile of blankets.
ALEJO: Alejo goes to check on Calixta.
STORY: Alejo, Calixta seems calm throughout, but after Millie and Tueller leave the room with your newest friend, her eyes roll back in her head.
STORY: She starts to seize and shake.
ALEJO: “Cali!” Alejo rushes over to her and keeps her head up. “Help! I need some help in here!” Alejo shouts, while the keeps her airway open.
STORY: It’s you and Tux, Alejo – if Millie or Tueller drop the patient, he’s not gonna make it.
STORY: What do you do?
ALEJO: “Tux. Get Millie. Now!”
STORY: Tux stands and goes to get her.
STORY: Millie, Tux catches up with you in the hallway, out of breath. “Something’s wrong,” pant, “with Noma. I don’t know what.”
STORY: Millie, if you leave this patient, he dies. What do you do?
MILLICENT: augh
TUELLER: Tueller looks like he’s about to toss the guy to the ground and run back.
TUELLER: Fighting that urge very hard.
ALEJO: “Cali, come on.” Alejo cradles her as best as he can, trying to keep her from hurting herself in the seizure.
ALEJO: He will try to help her, with what little field med skill he has.
STORY: Alejo, FA + Expertise, please
ALEJO: /roll 2d6-1
STORY: ablair01 rolled 5 – 1 = 4
STORY: Alejo, you yank the wire out of the port on the back of your sister’s head, thinking it might disconnect them and help. It doesn’t.
ALEJO: “Fucker, fuck!”
ALEJO: “Don’t you dare run away on me right now, Cali. Come on! Not like this.”
MILLICENT: Millie gently hands the man over to Tueller. “Keep him comfortable.” to the probably unconscious man, “I’m so sorry.”
MILLICENT: She runs back to the room with Noma
TUELLER: “Doc, no.”
TUELLER: Not physically, but I did say that to her as she was preparing to leave me.
STORY: As you rush out, Millie, Tux calls after you. “Millie, don’t – FUCK!” and he does his best to help with this definitely dying man on the gurney you’re wheeling around.
MILLICENT: Millie turns in the hallway. “Tueller, connecting to the network the AI uses could have fried her neural pathways. She could be crashing right now. I have to go.”
MILLICENT: Millie runs.
STORY: When you arrive, Calixta’s on the floor, still. Alejo’s yelling at her.
STORY: What do you do?
TUELLER: Tueller tries to keep this man alive.
STORY: Tueller, you’re gonna fail – no roll on this one. Millie had to be there to keep him stable. You and Tux try heroically, but he succumbs to shock within minutes.
MILLICENT: Millie slides in next to Alejo and examines her.
ALEJO: “Jesus. Doc. Please!” Alejo keeps Cali cradled.
STORY: She’s unresponsive, Millie, and has definitely gone through some kind of brain trauma. Her heart’s beating, but she’s neurologically crashing.
ALEJO: “I . . . I pulled that plug out. I . . . I didn’t know what . . . ”
MILLICENT: Millie does some first aid!
STORY: Roll dem bones
MILLICENT: Expertise?
MILLICENT: Interface?
STORY: Expertise
MILLICENT: /roll 2d6 + 2
STORY: josh rolled 5 + 2 = 7
STORY: Ok. You stabilize her, she’s not dying. But she’s comatose, and you don’t know for how long. There’s something going on inside the wiring part of her nervous system that you can’t touch, and it’s not repairing itself.
STORY: She’ll live, but she’s asleep.
MILLICENT: Millie conveys this and asks Alejo to get her to a bed. Then she bolts through the halls to get back to the engineer.
TUELLER: “He didn’t make it, Doc.”
TUELLER: “Did she?”
STORY: Tux looks angrily at the floor.
TUELLER: Tueller is wrung out, having worked to keep the scientist alive with no knowledge of what was going on elsewhere.
TUELLER: Tueller barely trusts his words.
MILLICENT: Millie runs back in and checks out the dead man.
STORY: He’s dead. Shock.
MILLICENT: She sinks to sitting, leaning on the wall
TUELLER: Tueller was doing CPR.
MILLICENT: “Dammit dammit dammit dammit dammit”
TUELLER: “Doc you have to tell me did Noma make it?”
MILLICENT: She starts to quietly cry.
MILLICENT: “She did, but she’s badly injured. Comatose.”
ALEJO: Alejo carries her to a bed and lays her on her back. He pulls the covers over her. Then takes her hand in his and kisses it. Then he gives it a squeeze. “Thank you, sis. You rest now.” He brushes a tear away.
MILLICENT: She looks up through her tears at Tueller, “I don’t know how to fix it.”
ALEJO: He pulls up a chair and sits by her.
TUELLER: Tueller makes a fist and turns and squares up. He does not punch anything, though.
TUELLER: (He was aimed at a locker, not Millie.)
MILLICENT: “Why does this keep happening?”
TUELLER: “Because what we’re doing is hard. Harder than anything we’ve done. But we have to do it. We’ve started it. We’ve got to do it.”
MILLICENT: Millie hiccups and sobs in the hallway for a while.
STORY: Tux goes back to his quarters to sleep. He’s checked out.
ALEJO: Alejo keeps vigil beside Calixta’s bed.
ALEJO: He’s not left since he brought her to it.
MILLICENT: Millie wheels the engineer back into the back rooms, looking for the incinerator where the jump relay destroys travelers, then disposes of the body of a man whose name she doesn’t even know.
STORY: All right, next morning? Everyone’s gotten some sleep?
STORY: No change to anyone’s status. Tux sleeps in.
TUELLER: Tueller wandered the halls for awhile before turning in, but yes, some sleep.
ALEJO: Alejo maybe got an hour or two, in short naps. He’s currently pacing around Cali’s room.
MILLICENT: Millie probably gets an hour or two.
STORY: So everyone’s nice and rested.
MILLICENT: She wakes up periodically to take notes and run out some lines of thought on how to help Noma.
MILLICENT: Sure, not cranky at all
STORY: What’s everyone doing?
STORY: You’re alive and the base is still working, which would seem to confirm that the AI never caught you.
ALEJO: Alejo turns on his com. “Hey Doc. Get any sleep?”
MILLICENT: “No, not much. How is she?”
TUELLER: Tueller physically walks the base, sketching things out. He’s honestly just literally searching for something that looks like an ansible to him. He checks in with Millie from time to time.
MILLICENT: Did Millie come up with any way she could help Noma?
STORY: Nope.
ALEJO: “Same. Asleep. Hasn’t moved a muscle.”
TUELLER: Tueller looked at Noma from the doorway but did not go in or say anything.
ALEJO: “But she’s alive.” He finally adds. “Thanks to you.” He says this softly. “Thank you.” He turns the com off.
ALEJO: Alejo starts to pace again.
STORY: Shall we fast forward until everyone’s gotten some sleep?
STORY: It seems like no one has a next move.
MILLICENT: Yeah
STORY: It’s another 24 hours later, or so you estimate. No clocks in this fucking place.
TUELLER: Well, Tueller continues to physically look through the guts of the ship.
STORY: Everyone has eventually gotten a full night’s sleep
MILLICENT: Millie calls a meeting in Nikau’s office.
STORY: Tueller, you’re not going to find a technology no one would know how to recognize from just looking around, which you realize after a few hours.
STORY: Tux shows up first, but doesn’t talk to you, Millie. He’s still definitely, definitely mad.
ALEJO: Alejo adjusts Cali’s blankets, makes sure that she has water by her bed, leaves her a note, in case she wakes up, and goes to the meeting. He walks into the office.
ALEJO: “Hi.” He looks back and forth between Millie and Tux.
MILLICENT: Millie nods hello. She’s making tea.
MILLICENT: Should we wait on Tueller or assume he’s there?
TUELLER: He’s there.
MILLICENT: “Good morning, I think.”
TUELLER: Tueller nods. He hasn’t spoken more than monosyllables in the last day.
MILLICENT: “Tux, I’m very sorry about your professor. I left him because I had a good idea as to what was happening to Noma and I believe if I hadn’t made it there when I did she would have died.”
STORY: Tux looks at you impassively.
STORY: “It’s fine. We’re never getting off this thing.”
STORY: “But if you don’t mind, I’d like to go back to the job where the worst I had to deal with was cleaning up shit.”
STORY: “I’m not up for pretending we’re ever getting out of here alive.”
TUELLER: Tueller gives Tux a look of pure hate before tamping it down and going neutral again.
ALEJO: “Getting out of here alive isn’t our problem, Tux. We could run. But I thought you wanted to help these people?”
STORY: “And what did trying get us? Best thing I can do to help these people is make living here tolerable.”
STORY: “I’m gonna go have a poke around the gardens to see if there’s any kind of cultivar Angus thinks we can manage.”
STORY: “Good luck to you three. Don’t get us killed.”
STORY: Tux leaves.
MILLICENT: Millie sinks in her chair
ALEJO: Alejo shakes his head. “Fine. It’s us.”
TUELLER: “I’m sorry guys, I don’t have anything. Maybe he’s right. Maybe Noma was right. We just run, and retire in shame. Never leave the solar system again. Leave these people to their shitty lives.”
ALEJO: “Cali wakes up, I’m helping her run. She’s been saying it. I’m . . . I should have listened to her. I’ll stay, Doc. I’ll help you do whatever needs doing. But I’m getting Cali out of here, if that’s what she wants. And Tux.”
MILLICENT: “These people, they’re not Nikau. They can do this for a while, but someone will make a mistake and the AI will get involved. Then the Collective kills and replaces all of them, then hunts us down and kills us. Or simply wipes humanity from the Sol system and claim someone was poking around into the Collective.”
MILLICENT: “I don’t think we have much choice but to carry on.”
MILLICENT: “Tux and Noma can leave, once she’s better, but leaving won’t make her safer.”
ALEJO: “Maybe not. But I owe it to her to let her make that choice and help her.”
TUELLER: “I think it’s probably a moot point.”
TUELLER: “We can’t signal for our ride without fearing that we’ll alert the AI.”
TUELLER: “And if that happens we’re all dead.”
TUELLER: “So we need to hunt down and fuck up that piece of shit Ghost. For us. For Noma.”
TUELLER: “We can’t find the ansible. I searched, until I realized how fucking stupid that was.”
TUELLER: “Like there’d be the glow of Cherenkov radiation, I’d hit it with a sledgehammer, and we’d go on our merry way.”
MILLICENT: “It’s a nice thought.”
MILLICENT: “But I agree, I think it’s time we take on the AI.”
MILLICENT: “Kill or capture?”
TUELLER: “Fuck him up and flush him down.”
MILLICENT: “I vote capture, it leaves us with more options down the line.”
MILLICENT: “Cap’n?”
ALEJO: Alejo sighs. “Fuck. Capture. We need answers.”
ALEJO: “How do we do it?”
MILLICENT: Okay!
TUELLER: “Honeypot? DDOS everything in the system to push it into a corner, and then cut off that corner?”
MILLICENT: Millie comes up with an idea. A honeypot program to lure it in, then a maze or something? Maybe the analogy is more like a box?
MILLICENT: Sure. Lure it on to an island, then destroy the bridge.
STORY: It’s all computer stuff way beyond our vocabulary as 21st century people anyway, so let’s just have a FA + Interface to build it.
MILLICENT: /roll 2d6 + 2
STORY: josh rolled 4 + 2 = 6
MILLICENT: Dear Lord.
MILLICENT: Can I just quit this game? I feel like I’d be more help if I was playing video games right now.
MILLICENT: Millie fucks up bad, I guess.
STORY: There has to be a nadir
MILLICENT: Can I use a close up after a roll?
TUELLER: Can Tueller assist?
TUELLER: It was also his idea as well.
STORY: No! But you have friends, neither of whom are typing oh there’s Stu
STORY: How?
TUELLER: Well, Tueller’s idea was DDOS, which I conceived of as using all those computers in those rooms to contribute to an unpleasant-for-a-machine environment in the non-honeytrap part of the system.
TUELLER: Not good programming for him, but just making those systems unpleasant.
STORY: Okay, so he launches an attack as cover while Millie builds the thing? Sure, Get Involved + Interface
ALEJO: Alejo lacks the computer skills to be of much assistance, but he could can keep coffee/tea flowing and look real pretty while these two work.
TUELLER: /roll 2d6-1
STORY: chris.stuart rolled 9 – 1 = 8
STORY: Okay. Tueller, your program helps, but it helps too well. Your attack cripples the onboard life support and will cause a power outage to the water recirculators that you gather from the readouts will likely cut your vegetation supply in half (leading to starvation of your population within a few weeks) and leave everyone without clean drinking water for two days. You can stop the DDOS, but Millie’s honeypot will fail and the AI will become aware of you. What do you do?
TUELLER: Oh, continue with it.
STORY: NO SHOWERS!
STORY: All right. Millie, after ten hours of unpleasant coding and lots of tea and pretty views of your…. boyfriend?, you’ve done it. The onboard AI is on a portable drive in your palm.
STORY: As soon as you unplug it, the lights flicker and there’s a sound like the furnace turning over.
TUELLER: “I think I broke something, guys.”
STORY: Something changed on this base with the removal of that AI – it must have been running some of the functions you didn’t know were being controlled by non-automated systems.
STORY: You’re pretty sure you’ve started a clock, and you’re not at all sure when it runs out.
TUELLER: “Or did you do that?”
ALEJO: Alejo gives them both a pat on the shoulder. “Yeah you did!” Alejo says this with a smile that, with the nosies, turns into a frown. “Yeah you did.”
MILLICENT: “I think removing the AI did that.”
TUELLER: “Don’t let me hold that drive, by the way.”
TUELLER: “I don’t think any of us will like what I do with it.”
MILLICENT: Millie nods. “Let’s have a little chat with our new friend.”
TUELLER: “Here, let me hold it.”
MILLICENT: She tosses the AI up in the air in a thoughtful, supposed-to-be-cool way, but nearly drops it.
MILLICENT: She puts in on the table and takes a deep breath.
TUELLER: Tueller shakes his hands in a charging-up-his-gloves gesture.
TUELLER: “Let’s do this.”
MILLICENT: Millie plugs in her visor to the drive, projecting a physical view of the AI in the room.
STORY: The image fuzzes for a while, then takes the form of the Vitruvian Man, setting his strange, monochromatic feet down on the carpet in your quarters.
STORY: His eyes are open, but without any way to see, he simply looks around blindly, not actually observing any of you.
MILLICENT: “Good morning, we think. It’s time for an overdue chat.”