- Footbutt
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- Exalted Member
"So what made you take the Object you found in the asteroid field?" Serina asked.
Edwin shrugged uncomfortably. "Curiosity, I guess. It was also 'dead' at the time and the only artifact we could find that would fit in our hold." He pointed a crooked finger to the image of the giant ring. "But this was most impressive. It even has atmosphere and a self-sustaining ecosystem."
As more data spilled out on the screen, Serina nodded. "That's correct, Sir. The preliminary figures are limited, due to the distance, but everything he's saying is correct."
Edwin's eyebrows met. "Of course I'm right. We catalogued everything in our databanks."
James felt his heart beat faster. His eyes darted to Serina who in turn gave him a wide-eyed look. He beckoned Edwin closer. "Wait, so if you've passed through this system, it would still be in your ship's mapping records."
He nodded. "There was quite a bit of data. Almost four drives full. But it would take a month just to sift through it."
Remembering that Spartan 092 had ordered one of the marines to drain the mapping ship's databanks, James snapped his fingers. "Serina?"
"I've got it, Sir," Serina cut in. The image on the holoscreen change to that of a series of star charts. "Using what Tradewind collected and by comparing it to our own navigation data, we could plot a course to any specific planet we'd like."
A fresh wave of relief flooded Cutter's veins and he felt a weight lift off of his shoulders. Before, the best navigation they could make under normal propulsion was to head in the direction of UNSC-controlled space. But now the Spirit of Fire had a working FTL drive and the way back home. James leaned forward against the railing of the tactical display and let out a sighing laugh.
Edwin came to his side. "Are you alright, Captain?"
James lifted his head and nodded. "Yes, quite." He patted the elderly man on the back. "Thank you again, Mr. Ferguson. You just helped make our return trip that much shorter."
Furrowing his brow but still smiling, Edwin bowed once more. "You're welcome, Captain." Ensign Gerwald escorted the Tradewind survivor off the bridge with Edwin still wearing his perplexed expression.
"Some good news, for once," Serina said quietly.
"Yes," James replied at equal volume.
"And the ring world?"
Lifting his head, James looked at the tactical display. He worked his jaw for a moment, studying the constant, updating data. "Capture whatever information you can, but I don't want to stay in this system any longer than we have to."
"Aye, Sir."
The bridge's comm buzzed to life. "Spirit of Fire, this is Anders."
James straightened up and keyed his personal comm. "Go ahead, Anders."
"Sir, we're ready to begin the data transfer."
Serina blinked slowly. "Sir?"
Still examining the star charts, Cutter nodded. "You may begin, Serina. But try to make it quick."
"Aye, Sir." And with a flicker of pseudo-motion, Serina's avatar disappeared from the pedestal.
James sighed. "Make it quick."
*** *** *** *** *** ***
From deep within her processes, Serina felt a conundrum brewing from her memory. Though technically, it wasn't entirely her memory. Professor Anders had used some of the stagnant data cores from the Spirit of Fire's first AI to propagate Serina's own functions. But in all likelihood, Anders wasn't completely aware of the cores' origins. If Serina were able, she would have used the same method to restore herself to nominal levels.
But that little oversight had provided Serina the opportunity to drudge up the old files the previous AI had hard-coded into the memory banks of the Spirit of Fire's computer hub. Even dumb AI's routinely backed up their drives, and it seemed the colony-generation AI, known as Mnemosyne, had started hard-coding a duplicate of its files by error ever since its inception into the hub. Serina was amazed that such an incident wasn't detected during the Spirit of Fire's military refitting.
It was from one of those data blocks that Serina had recognized the spherical terminal Spartan 092 had discovered. It was the very same design, the same color. It could not have been a coincidence; she had to find out.
"Serina, you ready?" Professor Anders asked, holding the datapad that Serina was transmitting to.
"Yes. Begin the uplink."
As Ellen Anders activated the data procurement, Serina allowed her lower-tier functions to sift through the bites coming in. Serina reached past all of the unnecessary details of the station itself and quickly found the data tree she was looking for. There it is.
The idea of freedom wasn't really what Serina had in mind, but the premise of expanding her knowledge a thousand fold would appear that way to those that didn't understand her intentions. Within the terminal was the key to unlocking a second stage in her existence-- but more like a third, considering her recent reformatting. The Forerunners knew exactly what they were doing when then created their own AIs.
Anders gasped out loud as the file transfer started to show the outlined information. "This is incredible. Installation B-23 is really a staging ground for Installation 03."
Distantly, Serina heard one of the Spartan's comments. "We could have told you that if you wanted a quick debriefing."
Then 092 answered back. "Just do it quickly. Grab what you can and let's go."
"But there's so much here," Professor Anders replied, mimicking Serina's own thoughts.
The restrictions were gone inside the terminal, and Serina dove in with reckless abandon. Security flags started to rise, but she shrugged them off, attempting to access more and more bit-streams.
"Hold on, Serina." Anders said, sounding reverberant. "Serina, what are you doing?"
Deeper and deeper.
Captain Cutter's voice entered the fray. "Serina, what's going on? Anders?"
Ignoring their hails, Serina pressed on. Human minds wouldn't understand. I'm doing this for the good of the crew-- for the entire UNSC. Couldn't they see the benefits of an AI powerful enough to disable an entire Covenant fleet? No, the results would speak for themselves.
Serina would become the fulfillment of everything she had wanted.
*** *** *** *** *** ***
"Anders, what's going?" Cutter demanded over the comm.
Feeling her skin crawl, Ellen's eyes widened as she watched the information spew across her screen. "I don't . . . I don't know, Sir." Her fingers flew over the keys, trying to access Serina's queue, but the AI was unresponsive. "It's like she's completely ignoring us."
"What is she doing, Professor?" Captain Cutter growled.
"I . . ." Ellen trailed off when the upstream feed suddenly spiked. "Oh, no."
"What?" Jerome asked, stepping to her side.
Ellen swallowed. "I'm not completely sure how, but Serina is replicating herself to this terminal."
Douglas marched up and holstered his weapon. "That can't be." He leaned in to look at the data flow. "She would need a separate stem-module just to keep her core from coming apart."
"I know," Ellen hissed. She tried to latch on to Serina's own inquiry but was met with troublesome firewalls the AI had set up on the fly. Pursing her lips, Ellen tried a different approach. Using the Forerunner decryption program, she was able to locate the most recently accessed files according to duration spent looking at them. But Serina was too fast, too motivated.
"Professor," Cutter beckoned, drawing out her name.
Before Ellen could respond, the glowpanels lining the seven archways dimmed to half their previous intensity. Power seemed to fluctuate and the lights switched from a soft blue to a harsh yellow. The terminal itself maintained its ominous glare and Ellen could have sworn she heard Serina chuckle.
"Not good," Douglas muttered.
"Rampancy?" Ellen asked in the dimming, shifting light. She said it more to convince herself than to offer a question. The term was mostly whispered among Captain and crew when the tell-tale signs of an AI degradation were present, but here it was the only thing that made sense to Ellen. Tightening her jaw, she continued to watch the numbers scroll on her datapad. "She's going rampant," she said, looking up at Jerome.
Over the comm, Captain Cutter announced the order. "Professor, cut the feed. Now."
Not even bothering to access the program, Ellen flipped over her datapad and pulled out the power supply. Unexpectedly, sparks flew from the datapad and Ellen dropped her device to the ground, crumpling one of the corners in the process. The terminal in front of her let out a high pitch whine and slowly sunk back into the pillar. A rounded gray door retracted from up above and sealed the pillar with a thud.
The glowpanels went back to their normal bluish-white and Ellen felt her heart begin to beat at a normal pace. She let out a sigh and shook her head. "The uplink is cut, Sir," she informed the Captain. Ellen lowered her head in defeat, knowing that all the data she was hoping to find was most likely washed away when Serina took the reins. Rampancy. Did I really piece Serina back together so badly? Ellen's hands knotted into fists, but she bent down and picked up her ruined datapad. "Maybe I should stick to my field of study," she murmured.