The Horrors - Edited 11-9-2018

It took me a few minutes to calm down Sato. He was like me, half Navy, half Marine. The difference is that he started off as Navy, then when the project was announced, and he qualified, he switched over to become a Marines. It seems that our Purser felt that being a Marine would help end issues more quickly if someone wanted to argue about what they were issued. Pursers haven’t changed in the last millennia.

“Sato, any of your old shipmates on the Arks?” I was killing time waiting on verification from Rasputin as to if the gravitational changes for a zero-G cargo bay would have an adverse effect on the recycler. We had installed it against a bulkhead so we could build a room around it if needed. I just didn’t see the need. Sato was worried about idiots not reading signs.

“A few. They don’t like that I swapped out Cracker Jacks for BDUs, but they understand how advancement works and that when there are holes, the pressure pushes you up.”

“Same for me but going the other way. A few of them even made me a uniform when the shit was going down.”

A blip on our terminals came up. A message from Rasputin with edited schematics for our cargo bay.

“Okay, Sato. You were right. I owe you a drink. Rasputin requires us to go with bulkheads. Still, like the zero-G plan, or do you want to stay gravity bound?”

“That’s the shit, isn’t it? We go zero-G, then we get so much additional room. We stay planted, then no one validates a lot of shit, and things are ‘easy.’ ‘Easy’ makes it easier to fuck up.”

“I agree. We can build some dummy half walls, then recycle everything, store it, build the rest of the bulkheads up. It’s more work but best of both, ya know?”

“Jax, this is crazy, but let’s ask some of the guys working in the shit.”

“What, you have an LS1 in here somewhere?”

“If only. No, I was thinking of having one of the corporals that are here helping out.”

Thirty minutes later we had a meeting with the logistics personnel and cargo rats that were not NCOs. After that, we decided to go the long way. Another 200 plus man hours would be needed. That did not endear me to any of the grunts that saw me come in and fuck up any weekend plans they had. It was more than the original plan to go zero-g by a lot, but in the end, it would help us save a lot of time.

After the long day I had, it was time for a meeting with my rack.

“Jax, could you please report to Hera. She is requesting Observers data and input on some research projects that are ongoing.”

Rasputin’s voice was needling me awake. Checking the time, I had only been asleep for maybe two hours after a 26-hour day.

“Sure, Rassie. When?” I shut my eyes and tried to ignore the real world.

“Now would be preferable. While we are patching our external sensors from damage received it would be the perfect time to upgrade them.”

I hoped I would be able to sleep in Hera’s Virtual Space. She wanted Observer, so maybe it would work.

“Fuck. Fine, on my way.” I threw on my ship suit and headed over to the Science bays so that we could get me hooked in.

“Of course, I know the bays are locked!” I shouted into my hand-held. “It’s zero-two FIFTEEN. I’m asking WHO THE FUCK was supposed to be here!”

When I arrived at science, it was locked down. So here I was waking one of the scientists like Rasputin had done me, only I was a lot less professional.

“When Hera summons us, mortal, we MUST answer the call of the gods!” Maybe I was putting it on a bit thick, but I hadn’t had any coffee, hoping to sleep again soon. “So, Doctor, who is on shift? Who is making your life shit by having placed YOUR name on these lovely glass doors?” I disconnected the call.

Sure, I was rude. I knew it. Like a grave-lift wreck, there was nothing I could do to stop it. Have you ever had that moment where you can see yourself acting like a complete ass, but you’re unable to stop? That’s where I was. Too much work and too little sleep.

“Okay Razz, what now?” I took a long breath to calm myself.

“I have checked the duty roster. It looks as if one of the scientists in charge had decided to have standard hours for everyone. No on call. No after hours. No round the clock studies. This is disturbing behavior.” Rasputin’s voice came in through my handheld. “It also appears that you just woke up the, I believe your term is ‘Carl,’ which made the decision.”

There’s a lesson here. If you are going to make a decision that affects everyone in your duty chain, make sure your name isn’t in plain view of those that are affected by it on a secondary level.

“Okay, then unlock the doors so I can see Hera. Make a note for the Security teams. And then let’s go.”

The hatch in front of me opened automatically, and the illumination level went to “full.” I walked through the corridors of the Science bay until I found the door I was looking for.

“Razz, this is it right?”

“Experiential Sciences Division” was stenciled onto the bulkhead near the hatch.

“Yes, a small joke between the three of us. You see, you can go full virtual with Hera, so you can experience the actual science.”

“Yeah, I get it, but what about when testing radiation, or something that gets all explode-y?” I asked him. “We humans don’t like experiencing those things.”

I entered the compartment.

“Honey? I’m home!” I called out. I had minimal experience working with Hera first hand, so wasn’t familiar with her personality to add in my usual snark. AI’s would all react differently from one another however in my experience I had noted that the key to good relations was dead pop-culture references as well as strange tidbits of information that only existed in archives.

“Jax, welcome to my playroom!” The hatch closed behind me with a “whoosh.” I was glad there was a trace of humor in her voice because this was very near ominous.

“Rassie said you wanted to work with Observer?” I said approaching her holographic pedestal. Three chairs looked like cracked open Virt-Ps around it.

“Yes, please take a seat and plugin. I would like to borrow some of your computing ability as well. You see, things just haven’t been working properly since the reboot. None of my guinea pigs plugin anymore.” That last piece was said as if she was pouting. Her avatar had appeared in the pedestal and pointed to one of the chair/pod combos.

I snorted, then strapped into the nearest pod.

“Okay, plugging in now.” I sealed my helmet and connected the lead to the data port. “Observer are you with us?”

“Never left.” The synthetic sound of dying machinery greeted us

“Does it always sound like that?” Hera was aghast.

“Yeah, you get used to it. The voice doesn’t matter; it’s the brain behind it.” I said. My vision went black.

A pinprick of light filled my vision as I became aware of my surroundings. I was standing in front of a was a white-columned temple surrounded by lilies overlooking a sea or ocean. There was a drop of easily a hundred meters and the air was salty.

“You’ll have to forgive me. I prefer this locale to that droll room I am locked away in.” A woman standing over eight foot with bronze skin and hair the black of the void stood before me. A white, hand-spun wool tunic, wrapped by a heavily threaded golden belt, and golden sandals were what she had on, strapped to her back was a large bronze shield and in her hand was a scepter.

“Taking cues from Yama on ‘living up to your appearance’?” I asked. A shadow peeled out from my skull, unfolding itself like an origami crane, until it too was standing over my height.

“I do agree, though. This is a much better place to spend the time while you two talk. I turned to start walking away to see if I could find an easy way down to and back up from the beach.

“You stay, needed to validate observations.” The voice was more substantial than nails, this time. Almost as clear as when I had what I was thinking of as my fever dream.

“Okay, you want me here, I’ll stay here,” I said, looking longingly at the water again. “But I still want to check out her construct when we’re done, okay?”

“I may allow it,” a smile was on Hera’s lips. “Now, if you will please follow me?” With a step, we were all inside the temple which had previously been dozens of meters away.

When I say “temple,” I mean the outside, as the inside was a researcher’s dream come true. Virtual screens hung in the air each processing different data sets. One entire wall was spent calculating various observations on the known laws of physics and comparing them to what had been known.

The ground was a high polished slate looking material. Had this been the real, this material would be the synthetic stone made for governmental buildings. The orphanage had one in the cafeteria. It is designed to be non-slip, resistant to most chemicals, and hydrophobic. Government buildings used it to make cleaning up blood from protests easier. The orphanage had it so that cleanup could be done with a hose. I think that was also part of the Government's use case.

As we approached a counter, there were several other “gods” that were working on problems or validating schematics. They were all either a Synthetic or Virtual Intelligence. I could see Hephaestus reviewing materials for the weapons schematics to ensure they would all meet stress requirements and typing up recommendations for substitutions.

Ares was summoning virtual weapons from those same schematics to see how they were balanced and writing up reports on suggested modifications. Occasionally he and Enyo would duel with some weapon or armor from the schematics in front of them to ensure that the resistances were as they were stated.

Eileithyia and Hebe were reviewing nutritional needs and comparing DNA analysis from samples taken from the military and civilian populations. Hebe constantly excusing herself to run and fetch something for one of the other Vis.

“Hera are all of your subroutines other gods and goddesses?” I was curious as I wasn’t sure what they were all doing or how many she had.

“Yes, thanks to the latest upgrade from Asimov, I am now able to have multiple VI’s running my subprocesses. I figured using the Greek Mythologies would be fitting. I have my power research being managed by Zeus. He also handled EM Fields and not just the theoretical power situations.”

“As you saw Ares and his sister test weapon and armor schematics for effectiveness, while Hephaestus ensures that there are no flaws in the materials selected for the schematics. I have Ceres calculating out food and nutritional requirements and greenhouse modifications, and Pan is looking at ways to increase the vat-grown meat production without lowering the nutritional value.”

“This is history?” The voice of Observer seemed less grating somehow.

“It’s a simulation based on records from history and not meant to be accurate. I believe ‘stylized’ is the way the humans put it.”

We entered a room a side room and three old crones were hunched over a single eye and discussing light obfuscation technologies and multi-frequency sensor detection arrays.

“Do you link up with Yama and use the data from the schematics in the game based…” I asked, the last one to enter the room. I froze immediately when I saw the three old crones.

Hera and the three all laughed. It felt strangely choreographed.

“I see you even have the Graeae,” I said, then I put two and two together. “Wait, are they in charge of sensors research?”

The Horror - Original

It took me a few minutes to calm down Sato. He was like me, half Navy, half Marine. The different being that he started off as Navy, then when the project was announced, and he qualified, he switched over to become a Marines. It seems that our Purser felt that being a Marine would help end issues more quickly if someone wanted to argue about what they were issued. Pursers haven’t changed in the last millennia.

“Sato, any of your old shipmates on the Arks?” I was killing time waiting on verification from Rasputin as to if the gravitational changes for a zero-G cargo bay would have a negative affect on the recycler. We had installed it against a bulkhead, so we could build a room around it if needed. I just didn’t see the need. Sato was worried about idiots not reading signs.

“A few. They don’t like that I swapped out Cracker Jacks for BDUs, but they understand how advancement works and that when there are holes, the pressure pushes you up.”

“Same for me but going the other way. A few of them even made me a uniform when the shit was going down.”

A blip on our terminals came up. A message from Rasputin with edited schematics for our cargo bay.

“Okay, Sato. You were right. I owe you a drink. Rasputin is requiring us to go with bulkheads. Still like the zero-G plan, or do you want to stay gravity bound?”

“That’s the shit, isn’t it? We go zero-G, then we get so much additional room. We stay planted, then no one validates a lot of shit, and things are ‘easy’. ‘Easy’ makes it easier to fuck up.”

“I agree. We can build some dummy half walls, then recycle everything, store it, build the rest of the bulkheads up. It’s more work but best of both, ya know?”

“Jax, this is crazy, but let’s ask some of the guys working in the shit.”

“What, you have a LS1 in here somewhere?”

“If only. No, I was thinking of one of the corporals that is helping out.”

Thirty minutes later we had a meeting with the logistics personnel and cargo rats that were not NCOs. After that we decided to go the long way. Another 200 plus man hours would be needed. That did not endear me to any of the grunts that saw me come in and fuck up any weekend plans they had. It was more than the original plan to go zero-g by a lot, but in the end it would help us save a lot of time.

“Jax, could you please report to Hera. She is requesting Observers data and input on some research projects that are ongoing.”

Rasputins voice was needling me awake. Checking the time, I had only been asleep for maybe two hours after a 26 hour day.

“Sure, Rassie. When?” I shut my eyes and tried to ignore the real world.

“Now would be preferable. While we are patching our external sensors from damage received it would be the perfect time to upgrade them.”

I hoped I would be able to sleep in Hera’s Virtual Space. She wanted Observer so maybe it would work.

“Fuck. Fine, on my way.” I threw on my ship suit and headed over to the Science bays so that we could get me hooked in.

“Of course, I know the bays are locked!” I shouted into my hand-held. “It’s zero-two FIFTEEN. I’m asking WHO THE FUCK was supposed to be here!”

When I arrived at science, it was locked down. So here I was waking one of the scientists like Rasputin had done me, only I was a lot less professional.

“When Hera summons us mortal, we MUST answer the call of the gods!” Maybe I was putting it on a bit thick, but I hadn’t had any coffee, hoping to sleep again soon. “So, Doctor, who is on shift? Who is making your life shit by having placed YOUR name on these lovely glass doors?” I disconnected the call.

Sure, I was being rude. I knew it. Like a grave-lift wreck, there was nothing I could do to stop it. Have you ever had that moment where you can see yourself acting like a complete shit, but you’re unable to stop? That’s where I was. Too much work and too little sleep.

“Okay Razz, what now?” I took a long breath to calm myself.

“I have checked the duty roster. It looks as if one of the scientists in charge had decided to have standard hours for everyone. No on call. No after hours. No round the clock studies. This is disturbing behavior.” Rasputins voice came in through my handheld. “It also appears that you just woke up the, I believe your term is ‘Carl’, which made the decision.”

There’s a lesson here. If you are going to make a decision that affects everyone in your duty chain, make sure your name isn’t in plain view of those that are affected by it on a secondary level.

“Okay, then unlock the doors so I can see Hera. Make a note for the Security teams. And then let’s go.”

The hatch in front of me opened automatically, and the illumination level went to “full”. I walked through the corridors of the Science bay until I found the door I was looking for.

“Razz, this is it right?”

“Experiential Sciences Division” was stenciled onto the bulkhead near the hatch.

“Yes, a small joke between the three of us. You see, you can go full virtual with Hera, so you can experience the actual science.”

“Yeah, I get it, but what about when testing radiation, or something that gets all explode-y?” I asked him. “We humans don’t like experiencing those things.”

I entered the compartment.

“Honey? I’m home!” I called out. I had very little experience working with Hera first hand, so wasn’t familiar with her personality to add in my usual snark. AI’s would all react different from one another however in my experience I had noted that the key to good relations was dead pop-culture references as well as strange tidbits of information that only existed in archives.

“Jax, welcome to my playroom!” The hatch closed behind me with a “whoosh”. I was glad there was a trace of humor in her voice because this was very near ominous.

“Rassie said you wanted a work with Observer?” I said approaching her holographic pedestal. There were three chairs that looked like cracked open Virt-Ps around it.

“Yes, please take a seat and plug in. I would like to borrow some of your computing ability as well. You see, things just haven’t been working properly since reboot. None of my guinea pigs plug in anymore.” That last piece was said as if she was pouting. Her avatar had appeared in the pedestal and pointed to one of the chair/pod combos.

I snorted, then strapped into the nearest pod.

“Okay, plugging in now.” I sealed my helmet and connected the lead to the data port. “Observer are you with us?”

“Never left.” The synthetic sound of dying machinery greeted us

“Does it always sound like that?” Hera was aghast.

“Yeah, you get used to it. The voice doesn’t matter, it’s the brain behind it.” I said. My vision went black.

A pinprick of light filled my vision as I became aware of my surroundings. Before me was a white columned temple surrounded by lilies overlooking a sea or ocean. There was a drop of easily a hundred meters and the air was salty.

“You’ll have to forgive me. I prefer this locale to that droll room I am locked away in.” A woman standing over eight foot with bronze skin and hair the black of the void stood before me. A white hand spun wool tunic, wrapped by a thread spun golden belt, and golden sandals was what she had on, strapped to her back was a large bronze shield and in her hand was a scepter.

“Taking cues from Yama on ‘living up to your appearance’?” I asked. A shadow pealed out from my skull, unfolding itself like an origami crane. It slowly unfolded itself until it too was standing over my height.

“I do agree, though. This is a much better place to spend the time while you two talk. I turned to start walking away to see if I could find an easy way down to and back up from the beach.

“You stay, needed to validate observations.” The voice was more solid than nails, this time. Almost as clear as when I had what I was thinking of as my fever dream.

“Okay, you want me here, I’ll stay here.” I said, looking longingly at the water again. “But I still want to check out her construct when we’re done, okay?”

“I may allow it,” a smile was on Hera’s lips. “Now, if you will please follow me?” With a step we were all inside the temple which had previously been dozens of meters away.

When I say “temple” I mean the outside, as the inside was a researcher’s dream come true. Virtual screens hung in the air each processing different data sets. One entire wall was spent calculating various observations on the known laws of physics and comparing them to what had been known.

The ground was a high polished slate looking material. Had this been the real, this material would be the synthetic stone made for governmental buildings. The orphanage had one in the cafeteria. It is designed to be non-slip, resistant to most chemicals, and hydrophobic. Government buildings used it to make cleaning up blood from protests easier. The orphanage had it so that cleanup could be done with a hose. I think that was also part of the Governments use case.

As we approached a counter there were several other “gods” that were working on problems or validating schematics. They were all either Synthetic or Virtual Intelligences. I could see Haephestus reviewing materials for the weapons schematics to ensure they would all meet stress requirements and typing up recommendations for substitutions.

Ares was summoning virtual weapons from those same schematics to see how they were balanced and writing up reports on suggested modifications. Occasionally he and Enyo would duel with some weapon or armor from the schematics in front of them to ensure that the resistances were as they were stated.

Eileithyia and Hebe were reviewing nutritional needs and comparing DNA analysis from samples taken from the military and civilian populations. Hebe constantly excusing herself to run and fetch something for one of the other Vis.

“Hera, are all of your subroutines other gods and goddesses?” I was curious as I wasn’t sure what they were all doing or how many she had.

“Yes, thanks to the latest upgrade from Asimov, I am now able to have multiple VI’s running my subprocesses. I figured using the Greek Mythologies would be fitting. I have my power research being managed by Zeus. He also handled EM Fields and not just the theoretical power situations.”

“As you saw Ares and his sister test weapon and armor schematics for effectiveness, while Haephestus ensures that there are no flaws in the materials selected for the schematics. I have Ceres calculating out food and nutritional requirements and greenhouse modifications, and Pan is looking at ways to increase the vat grown meat production without lowering the nutritional value.”

“This is history?” The voice of Observer seemed less grating somehow.

“It’s a simulation based on records from history and not meant to be accurate. I believe ‘stylized’ is the way the humans put it.”

We entered a room a side room and three old crones were hunched over a single eye and discussing light obfuscation technologies and multi-frequency sensor detection arrays.

“Do you link up with Yama and use the data from the schematics in the game based…” I asked, the last one to enter the room. I froze immediately when I saw the three old crones.

Hera and the three all laughed. It felt strangely choreographed.

“I see you even have the Graeae.” I said, then I put two and two together. “Wait, are they in charge of sensors research?”