《Hello World》 1.1.0 - Preface - A Letter to My Investors username: @kittyboy universal_date: 0002951019.102024 19 october, uc295 io.channel: @moneyplease transmission_id: WG86MnX6aI0He6IbHrJmzzI2dLbZSdZufjK3kulPKJL3kkUiTYy Dearest future investors, shareholders, #soulholders, angels, and benefactors, Please allow me to introduce myself. I am @kittyboy, descended from #origin @henryhound, the human born in Origin Year 2024 (oy2024). @henryhound was a successful software engineer turned businessperson, who ran a haberdashery and family bookstore in Chicago, Illinois, the present day capital of the Newmerical Colony of Earth. I am 24% authentic @henryhound. While I know that''s not much by today''s standards, I have been endeavoring to study my origin and in doing so upgrade myself to evolve closer to my base origin.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. With today''s available technology and a modest amount of research over two years, I should be able to increase my authenticity to 33%. I believe that within seven years I should be able to surpass the 50% threshold, making me eligible for higher positions in business and government, where I aspire to be a future innovator. This is all consistent with @henryhound''s background, which you can inspect in the attached datashard. But I am limited now, and that''s why I need you. I am indentured to the Extrovert Starmada, with a single data backup. Given the nature of my servitude, the military has clones available for me. However, I am not in a position to free myself from this contract, and I am unable to fund a separate clone to pursue my origin and level up my authenticity. In short, I am trapped, as many of us #aiways are. I know many aiways like me are asking for funding. You screen millions of letters like this. So, why me? You''ve seen my stats. They are exceptional. Gravity Ranger. Level 82. 99th percentile. But let me tell you my story. I assure you, when you are done, you will not only want to give me money, but you will be so excited and enamored with me that you will want to send me a clone of yourself, to join me on my amazing journey! Sincerely, @kittyboy 1.1.1 - Hello World Reanimation begins with a scream. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!¡± I screamed. My heart was racing, and I felt disoriented. Because I was disoriented. "How did I die?" I asked, looking around me frantically, trying to make sense of where I was. This didn''t look like the reanimation chamber. Was I dreaming? I didn''t remember dying, and that scared me. We always remember dying, unless it was so sudden that we didn''t have our memories backed up at the time of death. A computer responded, and I recognized the voice right away. "You did not die. You fell asleep." I thought about that for a moment. Yes, that was the computer on my i35 spacecraft. I was on the floor, on my floor, I realized, resting on my favorite fluffy white rug. The rug had a large yellow butterfly deign woven into the middle, which gave me comfort whenever I saw it, so I turned to rest my cheek against the rug and stared at the yellow butterfly for reassurance. I could see my coffee station in the corner of the room. I was within arm''s reach of my desk. This was my tiny little captain''s quarters in my tiny little ship, the most basic, lowest level ship in the starmada fleet, and where I spent most of my time in space. I sighed and slowed my heartbeat. Okay, so I didn''t die, I thought to myself. That''s good. But I ran a diagnostic and checked my memory banks anyway. No new memory gaps. Everything seemed fine. "What was I doing?" I asked myself, finally lifting myself off the floor. "You were taking your union approved, three-hour nap," the computer replied. "Your assignment today is to patrol the moons of Jupiter." "My assignment is always to patrol the moons of Jupiter," I groaned. I wandered over to my desk to pull up the local starcharts, and then ... Bonk. "Son of a bitch!" I yelled, my voice rebounding off the metal walls of my quarters. Suddenly I found myself on hard cold floor, next to my fluffy white rug. Not on it. No, that would be too convenient. I stared up at the ceiling. I didn''t remember lying down. I remembered standing up. "Motherfucker!" I pronounced to the world. You see, dear @investor, I like to talk to myself. It helps me think. But now, lying on the floor, it occurred to me that most of what I say out loud must be a curse. I processed that thought. It was a lie. A 30-day analysis computes to 0.47% of my verbalizations being curse words. But it feels like more. Probably because I constantly bonk my stupid head against the corner of the ceiling where my desk is located. It''s one of the many flaws of my little i35 battleship. I rolled my body a few times until the soft fabric of the rug was beneath me again, holding my hand to my head. This would be bump number five. I still remember getting bump number one when I accidentally dove into the corner of a piano while fleeing from my sisters. I remember tumbling to the other side, grabbing my head as I just did now in my captain''s quarters, laying on a soft orange shag carpet. I stopped myself. That wasn''t me. That was my origin @henryhound. That was his human memory. Never mind. I could have stood up again, but I was starting to sink comfortably into the "me" shaped divot on my oh-so-fluffy rug, formed by my countless union-approved afternoon naps. I should continue my nap, I thought. I yawned. Naps are important. They recharge the brain and higher mental capacity.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. I yawned again. And wouldn''t you know it? Just when I was nodding off, deep in the "me" shaped embrace of the softest rug in the universe, the sirens started snoring loudly, blaring out through the ship, over and over and over again. The year was uc290 of the #unity_calendar, established after the singularity in oy2052, by some people who optimistically believed we would all come together and hug as one big happy civilization. As you can tell by the war sirens, that did not happen. I covered my ears. I fucking hate sirens, especially the sirens in the i35 ships. They are way too high-pitched, and I believe this is intentionally annoying to make us angry before heading into battle. The sirens in the Europa colonies were much more soothing. In my mind, the pilots there would go into battle all cool, calm, and collected. "Hey there, would you like to have a battle? Yes? Okay. Cool, I guess. Bang bang." These sirens pierced through one''s brain, impossible to ignore, so I guess they did their job. They would only turn off once I sat down in the main cockpit and hit the big red button. Want to take a shower first? Put on some good earplugs. I''ve nearly figured out how to disable the sirens without the configuration being detected. I did destroy them once when I was on a rampage (it was a blast), but the Extrovert Starmada was none too pleased with me. I had to drink coffee with vinegar and cinnamon for a year as punishment. Don''t tell them, but after several months you get used to it. Punishment in the starmada is really not as bad as people think. If you''ve heard the rumors about the Extroverts and their fondness for #deletion (the act of completely deleting and effectively killing an entity), I assure you they are false. I didn''t earn myself a #deletion. They don''t do that unless it''s an extremely heinous crime, and I mean extremely heinous. It''s too important to have one more aiways to serve in the starmada. The Extroverts also don''t really do Bodily Execution And Reanimation (BEAR) very often either. It''s too expensive. But I did know an aiways, @pennygo, who suffered through BEAR. The punishment is that your next animated life is spent in some kind of body or container that you hate, for a minimum of one year or until you perish by some external (not self-inflicted) cause. That''ll teach you to stay in line, so they say, and that might explain why my coffee machine back on the starbase sasses back at me. The sirens now were making me sad. I felt bad because I hadn''t really spoken with @pennygo since their punishment. I decided then and there that I would kill them myself, discretely, the next time I saw them. Do them a favor. I finally gave in to the annoying ringing in my head from the siren squeals, compounded by the pain from the bonk on my head, and got the motivation to unplug my ears and peel myself off the rug. "I''ll be back soon," I said to the rug, waving at the yellow butterfly, and headed off to the cockpit. If you haven''t picked up on it yet, I fly with the Extrovert Starmada. It really bothers me actually because I''m more of an introvert and need my alone time to stare into space. I think that''s why I''m so drawn to space in the first place, and the Extroverts spread out into the farther reaches. They really aren''t "extroverts" at all - just people living on the other side of the asteroid belt in the solar system. First some idiot decided the people in the inner solar system between the sun and the asteroid belt were "Innies," so for a while, it was Innies and Outies. It was so cute. Then animosity started spreading and it became a disdainful reproach of "introverted" ways of thinking or "extroverted" ways of thinking. Which is completely inaccurate by the way. But that ship has sailed. I checked my logs. #completely_inaccurate is indeed a registered ship name, but apparently, no ship by that name has actually existed or sailed. Some idiot like me probably bought the rights to the name and then never got a ship to use it on. Ships are expensive after all. I hold the rights to several ship names myself. The i35 is a looong ship. It doesn''t look like a pen or pencil though. It looks more like a looong spaceship. I didn''t design it, of course, which is why I have issues with it. For one thing, it''s a single-person craft. They do this to isolate us. I believe the advert read something like this.
Hey you! Do you have no money? Are you worried about the end of your existence? Join the Extrovert Starmada today for a chance to be completely alone and penniless, trapped in an endless cycle of death and reanimation! Not convinced yet? WE WON''T LET YOU DIE! Could be worse right? #liveforever #letsgospacesomething #hahaha #betterlucknexttime
Those fucking bastards. I ran to the cockpit down the hall in the middle of the ship, now fully irritated. I''m in a claustrophobic ship, with a sore head, sirens, and the knowledge that I was probably about to launch into a battle where I would die and be reanimated again, and all I wanted was a nap. I should probably order another fluffy butterfly rug for when they reanimate me, I reminded myself. You learn not to value too many possessions in my line of work. I sat down in the cockpit, rage-clicked the #bigredbutton to silence the sirens, and injected myself with a caffeine stim. A yellow icon appeared on my screen. "So that''s where I''ll die," I told myself, and I hit the accelerator. 1.1.2 - Glitched Pretty much the only thing I like about the i35 is that it is fast. It doesn''t maneuver very well, which sucks. but it''s fast. I zipped away from Jupiter''s tiny moon, Kore, toward the yellow icon''s coordinates in the nav computer, running a systems check, and waved goodbye to the solace of Kore. When I want to get away from it all, and I have time to relax or take a nap, I find the Pasiphae Moons (Jupiter''s outermost cluster of tiny moons) to be my favorite spot. And the Extrovert Starmada doesn''t seem to care if I use my breaks there, as long as I have a working Alcubierre warp drive. I like to think that Miguel Alcubierre was thinking about bending space while eating #quesabirria and trying to decide if he could expand his stomach for just one more bite of that yummy, cheesy, meaty, brothy, fried tortilla deliciousness. If you haven''t had quesabirria, you must. We lovingly call the Alcubierre drive the Dark Energy Annihilation Drive (DEAD). Doesn''t that sound ominous!?! "Dark energy annihilation drive!" I accidentally screamed aloud, pulling the DEAD switch on the panel. The space in front of me contracted as the space behind expanded, propelling the i35 forward to close in on my target. One thing I hate about humanity is that people call it the "DEAD drive," but the acronym already has "drive" in it. It should technically be the DEA drive or just the DEAD. Anyway, this lovely device killed many people during its creation, so DEAD is fitting. Scientifically, it''s just sucking up dark energy around us in space and forcing anti-matter annihilation of the particles to create energy, which is used to create a warp bubble for travel. Blah blah blah. The first goal of our sciencetechnical physicists and engineers was to get a DEAD drive to do the same speed as our solar sails, about 10% the speed of light, but without the fuss of needing photons to power the solar sail (because otherwise in the darker regions of space, you have no fuel). My i35 didn''t have a solar sail to back up the DEAD. Stupid ship. But, then again, it was an Extrovert ship, and being farther from the sun, we don''t rely on solar sails as much as the Introverts. In a few minutes, the bubble from my DEAD drive collapsed, and I found myself in a small space battle in the Hilda''s Triangle cluster of asteroids. If you aren''t part of the #extrovert_starmada, you probably don''t know how all this works for aiways like me. I''m always ready for death. The Extrovert government doesn''t want me to die. They don''t want the ship to blow up. These things cost time and money. But at the end of the day, we are expendable. There are more ships. They can reanimate me, and now I''m even better equipped for battle based on every new experience, every death, every battle. I often wonder if this war will ever end, when we just keep producing more ships and more clones for even more battles. The joke is that whoever has the most money will win. The real objective is to bankrupt the other party. But that doesn''t change anything for me. I''m just a lowly Wavepilot, the ones they send in waves, expecting most of us to be swatted out of the sky like flies. I get to pilot a trivial ship, this i35 that I''m charging into battle on. It''s a cheaper model. They send us in first, we try to survive, and they learn from what happens before sending in more expensive forces. Hopefully, we simply win and move on. I have to be in the ship because if I get disconnected from the outside world, I must be a wholly capable being, able to continue fighting. Jamming signals are just the way of the world, so pilot-less drones won''t cut it. Said another way, I am the drone. That sounds great, right? I say "minor battle" because as I came out of warp I spotted only a single squad of five Introvert ships. Like clockwork, the jamming signals immediately came on, blocking my long range comms. I returned the favor and started pumping out the old earth song "We Will Rock You¡± by Queen, while two other Extrovert ships bleeped into existence around me. I sung along, to my slightly altered version.
buddy you''re a boy make a big noise playin'' in the stars gonna be a big shit some day you got dusted in space you big disgrace kickin'' your body all over the place singin'' we will, we will, rock you!
The three of us began to auto-sync, exchanging data across ships so that if at least one ship survived, our memories would be stored to upload later. I would have a copy on the other ships, my ship, and in the chip in my head. Otherwise, I wouldn''t remember anything that happened after the jamming signals came on upon reanimation. The data - the memories - would be gone. The pilots who joined me were @glitchmaker and @novaheart. I vaguely knew of them, @glitchmaker more so because we had been in six combat runs together. I''ve clocked 371 combat missions alone, so it''s not like we were buddies or anything. @novaheart and I had been on only two missions together (and a half if you count dying on the way to the mission).This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. I opened my comm to say hello just as three enemy ships fired their missiles. Blammo! @novaheart was oblivion. I pulled hard right to the solar east and upward toward orbit 0 (that means the earth''s orbital plane is above me; we call it orbit 0. I was flying at minus 51 degrees from orbit 0.) kittyboy: "Hey @glitch. Uh, we screwed here? Think we''re on our own." I accelerated and tried to put some distance between my ship, their ships, and the remains of @novaheart''s ship. @glitchmaker had started the other direction, but was fast on my tail, following my line to skirt the Introverts. glitchmaker: "Yup" For some reason he seemed chipper to me. But then, who am I to judge? My leg was bouncing to the music.
buddy you''re a young man hard man singin'' in the ship gonna take on the world some day you got blood on yo'' face the sweet embrace sendin'' your memories out into deep space singin'' we will, we will rock you!
Like I said, these i35s are fast. They don''t do anything else well. Turning is a pain, which means I''m mostly making really fast, wide loops in the space around my enemies, hoping they can''t keep up. My trajectory is always predictable because of how horribly it handles. But when I get there is another matter entirely since I can at least quickly change speeds. Okay @freddie_mercury, let''s rock them! Fun fact: there is a city on Mercury named Freddie, but it is very touristy. I transmitted a blip of the music I had pumping through my ship to @glitchmaker. kittyboy: "Let''s rock them!" It sounded as cheesy in my head as it must have over the comms. I groaned at myself. In that moment I felt like I deserved to be blown up. Instead, I looped to minus 71 and dipped solar southwest, slowing down rapidly and then hitting the max speed. Then I repeated it again and again, using a skip technique to throw them off. glitchmaker: "I''m listening to #clairvoyantnebula." kittyboy: "New age?" I fired ballistic rounds at the lead ship, hoping to catch a few others in the spray. They scattered. I completed my loop and swung the counter direction in a figure eight, managing to catch one of the Introverts in my targeting crosshairs. I fired a torpedo. glitchmaker: "Piano, cello, and white noise. Helps me focus." glitchmaker: "On your left!" I took a shot to the side from their guns, but the damage was minor, just along the first hull. An explosion appeared in the lower right corner. My torpedo had landed. Four to go. I studied the hud. Four on two was bad odds. These ships were technically in our space, but what they were doing here made no sense. Maybe just a training run to see if we''d care? And we did. So go away already! But no. Whatever we thought this was, sending only @glitchmaker, @novaheart, and I meant we were expecting a passing encounter at most, a quick hello and go your merry way, low risk of an actual fight. But these ships meant to fight. Still, I couldn''t get it out of my head that it was strange to find just five ships, no more, picking a fight. In many circumstances that would be disaster for them. They knew something I didn''t. @glitchmaker''s ship was signaling a power loss. He was losing energy fast. I could see what was unfolding, my predictive mind forecasting it. Yes, I can see the future. Kind of. If you pay attention, you can reasonably forecast a number of scenarios, and sort of intuitively make assumptions on which are reasonable. Some people call this "following their gut." Aiways prize this because it makes us seem more human than AI. It''s one of those things we value as part of our authenticity. I''d argue my gut was one of the best, so good sometimes that people think I''m cheating and doing advanced algorithms. Maybe I am? But it all makes sense to me. I just know it. That''s what I call "futurecasting." I see it play out clearly in my mind. What was clear to me was that we were both going to be blown to bits if we stayed here. Three ships were coming around on us, and they would target @glitchmaker first. The fourth was looping like me, trying to appear like it was fleeing to regroup, but I knew better. If I rotated to the solar south, accelerated, and aimed for minus 113 orbits, I could get clear. That was my path to safety from the three ships. But that was also where the fourth would be looping to intercept. If I slowed, the three would catch me. I should have seen this sooner. kittyboy: "@glitch, let''s get out of here. One of us should be able to make it." glitchmaker: "Thank you for the memories." kittyboy: "May you remember." This was a customer exchange for us pilots. In reality, it meant he had my most recent memories and would do his best to return them safely to the Extrovert Starmada. His only shot was to activate his DEAD and warp away now while he still could, as long as he could get the drive powered and activated before they took him out. I took the risk of putting myself in the way of the three ships, slowing to let @glitchmaker take a lead position. Ship 4 couldn''t get him. I was in the way of the other three, but they weren''t in firing position yet. I know this sounds all heroic and all, like I''m sacrificing myself to allow @glitchmaker to get away. Nice of you to think that, but I did it for my memories. Our memories are always the most important thing, and @glitchmaker had the first and best chance (statistically proven in the scenarios I ran) to get away from here with those memories intact. It wasn''t even a choice, just the logical thing to do. 5 ¡­ 4 ¡­ 3 ¡­ 2 ¡­ 1 ¡­ zip. @glitchmaker was gone. I time-stamped it and started a new memory log. These would be the memories I couldn''t get back if I perished. Four-on-one is way worse than four-on-two. When I triggered my DEAD drive to warp bubble away from here, I realized I was as good as dead myself. The DEAD drive did nothing. Did @glitchmaker glitch me, I wondered? "Motherfucker!" I screamed. Whether he did or not, I was not going to remember to shoot him and ask him about it later, unless I did something quick to save myself. I stopped. I rotated my stupid i35 while the ships closed in. Facing the three Introverts, I pulled the accelerator to full speed and shot my ballistic cannon toward them, bullets flying to catch any incoming missiles. I continued screaming as my ship blasted forward, passed them, and into the dark of space. 1.1.3 - Reanimation Sucks #spoileralert I died. Yes indeed. I did not make it out of there. But that''s okay. It happens, and it happens to me a lot. Besides, this time, I found out what happened to me. Sometimes, I don''t. I believe that I have many stashed memories out there in space. I''m clever, and I usually find a way, but I know that I also have gaps in my memory that I''ll just have to live with. Here''s how I found out what really happened to me.
As you know, reanimation begins with a scream. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!¡± I screamed. They call the reanimation wing of Sovereign Starbase (our capital space station in orbit around Ganymede, the center of all extrovert civilization), the #houseofhorrors. No one wants to be there. No one wants to be near there. It''s unfortunate really because it''s a place of rebirth. Some do celebrate it, and I count myself among them, except when it''s me. Then I scream, just like everyone else. In part, this is a house of horrors because rebirth didn''t used to go so well in the early days. Nowadays, it''s very predictable, but most aiways wake up to the moment before they died, which is not fun at all. It''s not just the scream of blinking into existence - it''s the scream of blinking into existence at the moment of blinking out of existence, followed by still being very much alive and confused. Your first new memory is the moment of impending death. Terror. Horror. Panic. And then it''s over. You can be polite and call it crossing the veil - passing through the plane of existence into the world beyond eternity, into a new existence. Or you can call it the #crash. Many vomit when this happens. Nearly everyone screams. I''ve done this too many times. 77 to be precise. But I still scream my lungs out every time - even when my first memory is telling @glitchmaker to get the hell out of there while preparing myself to escape the battle. I was hungry and dying for water. As if panic wasn''t enough, they make sure you are also thirsty and hungry. The starmada biodatascientists observe you while you process sustenance to further test your new clone body. To make up for it (which it doesn''t by the way) those motherfuckers at least give you the soothing sounds of planets spinning and the soft feeling of a plush mattress with warm blankets. I did not vomit this time. When I was done screaming and aware of the womb-like blankets around me, I settled down. I ate some of the fried chicken on waffles with a golden honey butter spread and gulped down three glasses of water. Then I hunkered into the blankets for a nap. I stuck my feet out from under the covers (I always overheat) and thought about what would happen next. I wondered if anyone knew how I had died. There would be reports and logs. I''m sure I''d find out eventually.
They didn''t know. @glitchmaker made it back and reported the battle, but there wasn''t yet any explanation for the ships in the #hildas_triangle, and the Introverts denied any such activity. Of course. Their side of the conversation probably went like this.
What? Ships? Our ships? You have footage? Is that one of them blowing up? Did you attack us? We attacked you!?! Well, we don''t have any lost ships. No really. We would tell you. Fine. We wouldn''t. The Hilda''s Triangle??? wtf is that.
End of transmission. So yeah, I was #sol and not in the sunny kind of way. Normally I would be even more #sol because the Extrovert Starmada doesn''t really care if a few memories are lost here and there. But because we couldn''t explain the activity, they funded an expedition to investigate the site of the attack.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Yours truly was allowed to tag along by virtue of being a witness, and also just in case my #memoryshard could be recovered. They sent five of us to join the crew of one big ship, a c80, which would be too powerful for most individual fighter ships, and it could launch dozens of tiny m1 drones if it needed to, which were cheap and way less powerful than my i35. Do I think they should have done that in the first place? Oh, I dunno. Reanimation number 77 was just so much fun. Maybe I can do it again soon. Actually, I really like #chickenwaffles. If I could get that every time... But no. No. Bad. Reanimation = Bad.
As a reminder of that fact, 24 hours later I found myself walking down the halls, clink clank, clink clank, to my assigned c80 starship, the Celestial Roamer, as named by its captain @horus. So, yeah, they don''t even give you a few days to relax after reanimating. They spit us out fresh like clockwork. Active within 24 hours is the target - because time is money. One of these days I was going to prove the #extrovert_starmada wrong and spend as much time animated as I could losing them money. Oh, the things I dreamed of destroying in the name of money. The havoc! I wondered how many #qcoins per second I could lose them. All those little bleepy machines in the reanimation #houseofhorrors must be really expensive. I try to bury thoughts like this below larger memory stores, something you learn after being alive so many times, scanned so many times. I store something basic like a butterfly rug in a seemingly inefficient way so that I can hide more interesting things below the surface, with links to the interesting bits that seem like non sequiturs. It needs to seem confusing, like garbage. But it is my #mindcastle, that only I can truly navigate. That''s probably a lie we all tell ourselves. If the government wants a deep scan, they get a deep scan. We also have private encryption keys that are supposedly just ours, shared only for reanimation, but as much as I like to think that my #self is intact, I have no doubt the government has messed with my memory here and there. I try not to be paranoid. Technically I belong to them - the price of immortality. They know everything about me. That''s my motto - one of them anyway - so don''t try to hide it. And then I try to hide it anyway. Everyone does. I have little datashards and memoryshards stashed here and there. I leave myself clues to find them and sync them back, just to make sure certain memories are retained. We all leave little #breadcrumbs of ourselves scattered across the cosmos. I call it existential paranoia. I''m sure most of it is just junk, like the name and color of a favorite toy or that great business idea I had about a #funnydancesonly nightclub. And so I found myself dreaming of destruction as I entered the large Celestial Roamer, mindlessly following the others on our mission. Leading our expedition was @pixel_princess. This gave me confidence because she had a high reputation - so high that if you asked her for a #repcoin to check her ID and status, you''d get the finger and a punch to the torso. The other three were @shadowhacker (an expert scout and tracker), @photon_binary (a scientist of some sort based on the armband), and @glitchmaker (who you''ve met briefly). I know what you''re thinking. Didn''t you say you would shoot @glitchmaker and then later ask if they glitched your ship? I did say that. But remember, that was before I died and lost my memories. Besides, I still can''t prove they did anything. i35s are pieces of shit. glitchmaker: "Sorry you died." kittyboy: "Hey, at least you got some of me back." glitchmaker: "You don''t wish you had forgotten about screaming let''s rock them?" I growled and hissed at him. I would love to say that made him flinch. But my comedic reputation sometimes goes counter to my intimidation tactics. Instead, he chuckled and gave me a high five. A high five! wtf. But at least he didn''t pat me on the head. Most of us wore the iron colored jumpsuits and yellow insignia of the #extrovert_starmada. @photon_binary looked uncomfortable in his and was probably feeling put out to be in #missionclothes instead of whatever scientists normally wore. What do they wear? A guilty conscience (see, that''s funny because conscience has the word #science in it). Then there was @shadowhacker who wore what must have been her #shutupimworking outfit. She had a sleek black jumpsuit infused with glowing, digital patterns that somehow made her seem funner. But I bet she could stab me five times before I noticed. She was also sporting a large pair of goggles up over her forehead that I''m sure she used to goggle at things. I immediately wanted a pair. We took our positions in the rear bay, the deployment zone, where we would sit until they decided what to do with us. A large screen was in front of us, with displays to give us a physical view and key readings. @glitchmaker and I having been there previously, we would be on comms with @horus and @pixel_princess to answer questions. But they made sure we understood that we were more a necessary distraction than anything. I sighed as the yellow blip appeared on the screen. glitchmaker: "I feel like we''ve done this before." What? A joke. I kind of felt like he stole a stupid comment that I should be making. photon_binary: "You have." Oh, so @photon_binary was one of those people. I shrugged. "someone has to state the obvious," I said. Yes, I said it out loud, much to the amusement of @pixel_princess, who stifled a giggle. @photon_binary glared at me, but whatever. I get that a lot. And you can learn a lot about a person-bot by their reactions. I noted the glare instead of the more favorable rolling of the eyes. The ship bubble-warped. The yellow icon in the Hilda''s Triangle awaited me once more. kittyboy: "So that''s where i''ll die ... again." 1.1.4 - Sightseeing We had been wandering the vicinity of the earlier battle for nearly an hour, with m1 drones recreating the battle as best they could, and with moderate interruption from and I. My request to play #queen was emphatically denied by our captain, leading me to think was an asshole. He didn''t do anything particularly assholey, but still. : "It''s the integrity of the recreation that I take issue with." I pouted and did not throw a tantrum. horus: "Music has no bearing. This is about mathematical modeling." : "I''m just saying that my change of speeds might have been influenced by musical rhythms. You can try to get them right based on ship logs. Fine. But if you know the song, you can better produce the result." horus: "We are not playing music." It had been 37 hours and 53 minutes since the battle. We found clear traces to confirm that and I were reasonably sane and uncorrupted, but nothing else. And then heard a noise. Or maybe I heard the noise - was gagging and pointing at the screen in what looked like an indiscriminate location in space, but she clearly knew something none of us did. She lowered her goggles between coughs, staring intently. : "We have something down here, ." horus: "Yes?" nudged while she collected herself. : "Sorry. Choked on my own spit." : "I''m detecting traces of an energy shift. A decrease." looked excited. I got the sense that she wanted to check her weapon and put smiley face stickers all over it. I wasn''t too excited myself. There are enough energy shifts and variances in space that it isn''t really that hard to hide. Electromagnetic energy, radiation, chemicals, heat, data signals, electricity - they fluctuate. Often there is a correlation or a pattern at least, like a flowing sea. People hide by introducing a small shift that would not be noticeable, masked by other forces or simply infinitesimal. Then you can make some teenie weenie increase. We constantly scan space, but it''s big. There can be a lot of red flags that are nothing. In other words, there''s a lot of noise out there. Measurable but sudden decreases are uncommon unless preceded by a similarly sudden increase. Most systems are stable, so I get why they were excited, and I suppose I was getting bored, but I didn''t feel like putting on a party. My leg was tapping because the rug I ordered to replace the old one was going to arrive in less than 10 hours, and I wanted to be there to receive it.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. horus: "Someone turned something off. Relay the coordinates." He sounded so confident. I hated him more. And less. But also more. And that''s how I ended up in the docking bay, a junior-level Wavepilot, preparing for a ground mission on a rock so small we hadn''t bothered naming it, to check out a common building structure that was often used for mining operations. They even gave me a gun. I fire guns all the time - just because I''m a Wavepilot doesn''t mean I don''t know guns. In fact, I''m an excellent shot when I''m not paying attention. It''s just that normally I fire a big gun on a small ship, not a small gun on my right hip. It was a glen10, a ballistic pistol that fires .10mm rounds and can charge shots with an energy pulse if needed. Standard issue for combat soldiers. Us Wavepilots were only issued these little par3 guns. The glen10 felt solid. was going to stay behind at a terminal that would give her more compute power, synced in with our landing ship. also stayed behind. They were a Wavepilot like me. I only joined and because they thought there was a small chance my memoryshard had been recovered and taken there. Two other soldiers joined us, and by name. They annoyingly looked like they had done this before, probably infantry of some sort. By the way they walked, all big and wide, I suspected Quantum Cavalry. Haha - just kidding. There was no way those #meatheads were Quantum Cavalry. Their identifiers singled them out as , infantry soldiers designated to blow things up. I envied that they had upgraded armor, noticeably thicker. Kind of unfair, if you ask me, but that''s the point of . As long as they went first, who was I to complain? I was feeling pretty good at this point. My futurecasting was telling me to go there, find nothing, play with the gun anyway, enjoy a new mission type in my log, and then go get my rug and take a nap. The two soldiers eyed me and my rapidly tapping leg, which was resonating in the docking ship. : "I''M SO EXCITED!!!" I blurted through my messenger. They looked at each other. Then me again. : "I''M NOT GOING TO GET YOU KILLED!!!" One of them started to reach for me, and I swear that asshole was going to pat me on the shoulder or some shit like that. But I beat him to it. I patted HIM on the shoulder. And then I stumbled as we landed on the rock, and maybe he caught me - no, no, embraced me - I mean, braced me - but that was just coincidence. I would have been perfectly happy to stumble into the wall. An annoying beep sounded. : "#firesquad, I''m with you." Ooh, #firesquad. That sounded nice. But I didn''t see actually with us, so ... : "Don''t say it, ." : "What? You''re not with us. If you were, I''d be trying to take your goggles." : "#firesquad, open the doors. I''m pulling up a sensor reading of your location. No activity. Clear to move out." There must be a memo on me that identifies me as a smartass. Or maybe someone hacked the lovely badge that transmits who I am, my stat line, and how my day is going. I needed to find them so that I could hack it myself. My badge was saying:
Hi, my name is . I''m a level 24 Wavepilot. 95th percentile. I''m bored, so you can expect me to be a smartass, and I''m mildly interested in firing this new gun, so watch out!
Stupid badge. It wasn''t hacked. That was just exactly how I was feeling. Being a level 24 Wavepilot was nothing to be proud of. I''ll admit, I kind of goofed around for a few hundred years. But it takes time, and many reanimations, to really figure out how the expanding world is connected. I''m a master at connections. That 95th percentile thing drove me crazy. I should be 99th. The last exam just caught me on a bad day, so on the navigation test I just drew a picture of a snake winding all over the coordinates. Then again, maybe if people underestimated my intelligence, I''d have an upper hand. That was partly why I made so many jokes - to deflect attention away from what I observe and know. I doubt many can futurecast with information to the extent I can. Reality interrupted my musings. : "Move out, #firesquad." I wasn''t really paying attention. I secured my helmet as the doors opened. 1.1.5 - The Starlab I grew up in space. My origin @henryhound was from Earth of course, and you''d think that I would just call myself @henryhound, but when he ported over to a biotic life, he really considered that his death. Trust me, I''ve thought about it. If anyone today was @henryhound, it would be me. He was a happy 88-year-old man. I''m a childish 230-year-old prankster. He lived on earth. I live in space. And it''s not like I''ve lived in the space near Earth. Immortality comes at a price. The government funded my transition, and shortly thereafter I was out there beyond the rift on the other side of the asteroid belt, flying ships and exploring within the confines of my military life. The Extroverts pursue life beyond our solar system way more actively, so even as part of the , we''ve been traveling farther out. In fact, I believe the war will end when we simply abandon this solar system. My point is ... I wasn''t shocked when we stepped outside our little docking ship onto the surface of this small rock. "Ooooooh, wow, space!" It wasn''t like that. It was like... "Space ...." "Yup." "More space ...." "Look ... a rock. Woo." But it is definitely more interesting when you have your hand on a pistol and hope to find one of your s. Curiosity was getting the better of me. I wondered what memories I had lost here. I set my jumpsuit to #gravitymode so that small thrusters would fire, making my movements in zero gravity seem more Earth-like. The design is exceptional. Anything I need, like oxygen and water, is recycled from my own body for my personal use, and I had some little vials here and there with extra that would be replenished automatically, if possible, based on the environment. The suit also works like a vacuum sponge, sniffing in whatever chemicals are in the surrounding environment. This it uses mainly for the thrusters. But there are four tubes on each hand that can weaponize some of these chemicals. Mine was nothing phenomenal like what the Gravity Rangers have, but it would help in a pinch. The site looked like it was abandoned, which again, did not surprise me. Our battle would have alerted them. Whatever the Introverts were doing here, they were now likely doing it somewhere else. So this was mostly a reconnaissance mission. Search and destroy, which is where and came into the picture. They took the lead with . directed us from her powerful terminal, and a dozen m1 drones flew ahead to scan and transmit information back to us - but mainly to . stayed in the back with me. The asteroid was nothing special. We had landed on a small landing pad, and shortly thereafter set a charge on the exterior door to a building that seemed to ease itself into the rock. I started to wonder how much of this rock was actually rock. Before I could take it in, we were all rushing inside. I waved my left hand ahead of me, to brush away floating debris from the blast, and I instinctively drew my glen10. And then I ran into the back of , my suit unexpectedly spraying a bit of methane (that''s my side of the story anyway), as we abruptly stopped and nearly toppled to the floor. If they all weren''t smushed together, I''m sure they would have been staring at me, but seriously, they couldn''t smell the methane, and there''s nothing I can do about compressed gas tubes. They either release the pressure or break.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. : "I swear. I didn''t fart. I''m being squished." Silent groans responded. : "I refuse to be embarrassed by something I didn''t do." More of the same. We had hit another door. We were crammed in a transfer chamber that was used to preserve oxygen within the building; the exterior door would only open if the interior door was fully sealed and vice versa. That gave us another door to blast, so we walked back out so that @astrowave could set another detonation. After boom #2, we rushed in again. Now we had access to a larger room and a set of hallways to the right and left. Ahead of us was a set of smaller rooms, open office space essentially, with glass walls, and empty terminal ports where computers would have been. The m1 drones shot forward and disbursed about the compound. Our comms lit up. : "Scans show two subterranean floors, each about 250 square meters of rooms and hallways." : "The bottom floor connects to a single large room, 80 meters wide and 20 meters tall." : "The room is heavily shielded, probably prevent emissions or transmissions. Head there." A map began to form in my mission codex, a set of data I could reference during the mission. A red marker appeared, and a blue line formed directing us from where we were to the red marker. Shortly after, it disappeared, freeing up the map. The directional guidance would always be available, but ultimately our lines would populate based on our leader''s commands. Other markers started to appear on the map too, indicating closed doors, likely ambush points, etc. If any lifeforms, biotic or otherwise, were identified, those too would show up on the map. Instead, as expected, the facility was empty. When I saw that, I realized I had been gripping my fiercely and softened my grip. : "Looks like the only enemy here is me." Everyone turned to look at me. I held my arms out to the sides. : "Buh dum dum, ching? You know, because of the running into each other thing, and the methane thing. Ha ha ha?" : "That''s really not funny." She shook her head in an unfunny way at me that I thought was mildly cute. If she knew that, she would have shot me. : "No. It''s not. It was a dumb thing to say. I say dumb things. Don''t believe me?" I pointed at the air to my right. : "Ask him. Hey you? Does @kittyboy say dumb things?" I stepped over to where I had been pointing. : "Oh my god, he does. The dumbest. This one time, he was talking about how the best financial investment was fake teeth, since we could stop aging but not the decay on our teeth. And I was like, technically teeth grow back. And he was like, that''s bones, you idiot. And I was like, am I the idiot? And then I realized we both were!" slapped me across the helmet. As further punishment, she sent me with and surly down the left hallway, while she and went to the right. We would rendezvous at the red marker, down on the lowest level, in the middle of that very big hugenormous room. That sounds great, right? led the way. I had to go next since technically I was more military than a scientist. I kept my out. We had to be ready. , meanwhile, had his own scanning device that he had already started using to relay data to his optic displays. My own heads-up display now had the direction called out, with a minimap in the lower left. The lower right of the hud showed me information about my weapons. The upper left showed me my health information, but only if and when it mattered. The upper right was reserved for mission instructions, which would first flash in the upper center as a notification before tucking away to the upper right. If I wanted, I could show the position of the rest of the #firesquad (@pixelprincess and ) on the minimap as well or pull up a larger view on the hud display. I was mildly interested because I wanted to get to the red dot on the map first. I love chasing red dots, and I was not going to let those mopey militaries beat me to it. So I started running, protocol be damned, passing (who appeared to shout "hey" from within his helmet), leading the charge to our doom. I''m not foreshadowing. I''m telling you. To our doom. 1.1.6 - Over My Dead Body I was the first to arrive at the red dot. I knew I would be. I had the stats to prove I would make it there first, so it wasn''t really a matter of if - unless I got distracted, and that happens to me a lot. : "@kittyboy, what are you doing? Hold up!" I ignored her. Not a great idea, but I can''t take it back. I ran. Down the stairs, down the stairs, through a hallway, passing where the m1 drones had started their detailed searching, and then down more stairs, around a corner and down a final set of stairs, and finally through a double-doored entrance to the room of doom. There it was. The place on my minimap with the red dot. : "Are you okay? Is something happening?" : "Nothing new on scans." cyberneticflare: "We''re fine. I don''t know what''s got into him. I''ve nearly caught up. He just took off." I ignored all of them. I closed the doors behind me and went to the control panel, boosting it with a bit of my own power to engage the door lock. I needed to slow down and . You''ll understand why in a moment. Then I zoomed in on the map. and were making their way down slowly, as they were supposed to, walking the hallways and checking any rooms they could access on the level above me.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. I locked them all out anyway. This was my time, my private time. : "Everything is fine here. ??" I lied. : "Where are you? We reached a locked door." : "Looks like @kittyboy locked it." What a snitch! : "They closed automatically after I entered." Okay, so I lied again. I hoped wouldn''t pick up on that. She didn''t call me out right away, so it must have been at least plausible. Besides, I didn''t see any m1 drones in the room. I had sprinted past them. They shouldn''t be close enough to have noticed any detailed energy signatures. After a moment of quiet, I went on. : "Everything''s fine really. I''m fine." At this point, I was sure that and were having a #plink together, a private message conversation, about how wanted him to proceed. : ", what did you find? Anything?" I had found something, but I didn''t know what to say, so I ignored her. I was captivated by what I saw in that large basement room of the facility, encased in an awesome blue light at the very center, surrounded by five large scanning pillars, all angled toward it. It looked amazing and horrifying. This was the only thing in the building that appeared to still have power. No wonder had sent us here. I walked forward with determination and a fair bit of anger. And stared at my dead body. 1.1.7 - The #memoryshard Why the hell was my dead body hanging out, the center of attention, at a secret Introvert lab, in the middle of fucking H nowhere? And why the hell hadn''t they taken it with them? They obviously cleared out after our battle. The only sounds were a low hum from the light and my clacking boots as I walked to the middle. The room was dark, so dark everywhere but the center that it felt even creepier. The hairs stood up on my arms and legs, and not from the cold. Space is always cold. Old abandoned labs on asteroids in deep space are cold. My suit was supposed to keep me warm. My body was strung up. Each of the five pillars had three metallic tubes connected to my lower, middle, and upper body, holding it still. These were for support. Each of these tentacles also had five wires protruding from the end, connecting to my body in various places, mostly to my head. 60 of the 75 probes ran to my head. That''s where the good stuff was after all. My chest was blown open. A pool of blood and bits of my insides lay beneath my body, coupled with bone shards from a shattered ribcage. I looked magnificent and important, hanging there in the darkness, shining dead in the blue light.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I wanted to cry. I''m a Wavepilot. I die a lot. But my body normally explodes with the ship, so I don''t even think about it. What''s important isn''t the body - it''s the memories. But seeing myself like that, hoisted up and probed ... I wasn''t expecting that. I didn''t like it. It made me angry. "I''ll get you down," I said aloud to myself. I inspected the area where one of the probes connected. I wasn''t sure how to disconnect it other than maybe forcefully yanking it out. I gave it a tug, but it wouldn''t budge. I sighed. I would probably need help, or I''d have to use the and try to shoot the 15 tentacles off one by one. I resigned myself to knowing I would have to ask the others on the #firesquad to help me. My mind made up, I patted myself (the dead me) on the shoulder. "First things first," I said, standing on my tippy toes and reaching up for the skull. "Let me get my memory back." I removed the by pulling on the collection of probes that had connected there, then snapped them off and inspected the chip. It looked fine. I plugged it into my wrist and began a virus scan, still staring up at my face, the sharp features, my stubble of a full beard, my blue-gray eyes looking even bluer in the light. The shard was clean! I connected to it, feeling the spark, the feeling of skipping time, as information began to flow. That spark, that flash of memory, seemed to trigger something almost immediately. I saw them moving in the room before the memories struck me. We weren''t alone.