Rat blinked away the memory and tears spilled from her eyes. Somehow, despite what she’d seen, it was the memory of Vallery’s soothing voice and gentle hand rubbing her back that lingered. That sound and the taste of flesh in her mouth. She gagged, holding her head for a moment, numb. There was no more dirt on her hands or dust on her smock. Once again, she was clean of the impurities of the ship, only covered by her own blood and viscera. Her face felt cool in her hands, the blood dripping past her eyes felt more like rain than hot, sticky, bodily fluids. She was almost at the end of it but she couldn’t give up now.

Her gaze pushed past her damaged fingers, staring at the floor. It was no longer the stone ground of a cave but was now a dark, matte black metal. She scrambled to her feet, looking around the smooth, circular room. The walls around her were void of any exit. At the center of the room, a large sphere floated in the air in utter defiance of gravity. Rat approached it, shaking. Was she at the core? The sphere reflected the voidlike room around it. It looked like it might be wet to touch, or maybe like it was liquid all the way through. She reached and brushed the orb with her fingertips. It was so smooth and cold that it felt like water, but she pulled away to find her fingers dry. The sphere was colder than water, colder than anything Rat had ever felt.

"Who are you." The voice spoke directly in Rat's head. "Why are you here?" The words were so hard they felt like they took a physical presence in her brain.

The sphere began to emit heat and a dim light shone from within. In response, an thin stream of icy fluid released from an opening above, pouring down the sphere and splashing onto the ground at Rat’s feet. She squealed, jumping back.

The light dimmed. "Foreign entity has reached the core. Initiate emergency protocol Black Box." Every few words the voice paused, and more coolant poured down on the sphere to dim the light inside it.

Rat stood there for a long moment. This was not the computer system she’d expected to find. In the context of the ship, a floating, talking orb was honestly on the normal side. In the context of something she had to destroy, she was completely lost. "Emergency protocol?”

“Emergency protocol Black Box. Designed to protect the sample.”

Rat stared at it, at her reflection in its surface. It seemed talkative enough, so Rat pressed it for more information. “How does the emergency protocol work?”

“Black Box targets the system flaws of intruders and exploits those to cause a painless shut down of the threat.”

A chill unrelated to the freezing room ran down Rat’s spine. “So you’re the ship’s defense system? You’re doing all this?”

“I run the ship. I am the ship’s built in artificial system designed to run the ship safely through the research expedition. Designed to safeguard the crew. Designed to protect the obtained sample.”

Rat snorted through chattering teeth. “You’ve done a shit job. Your crew’s toast. I’m not here to steal your stupid sample anyway. I’m here to shut you down.”

“Emergency protocol Black Box initiated.”

“Oh bullshit. You’ve already thrown that at me.” A shudder and a sinking knot twisted in her stomach at the memories.

“False. The protocol has never been initiated before now.”

Rat swallowed hard. “Sorry, my bashed in skull begs to differ. I did that to escape the memories and I was real damn close to being like your other victims. What kind of bullshit AI just kills everything that enters? Seems like you’re missing the intelligence half of that acronym.”

Several long seconds passed, with the only change being an increase in the sphere’s heat. "Question is deemed illogical. You are the first lifeform to enter in nine-nine-nine-nine-nine-nine -Recursion Error- cycles. There has been…” something changed in the coldness of the words in her head, “there has been no one else."

Rat blinked. “I literally just walked through your protocol for, I don’t know, hours? Days? Forever. Now you suddenly don’t remember?”

“Memory is sufficient for another twenty million cycles. There is no memory shortage.”

“Then why don’t you remember!” Rat’s voice banged around the room in a sharp echo and she sucked in a deep breath, lowering her volume. “Why don’t you remember? Is erasing your own memories part of the protocol?”

“You do not understand my protocol. It is a last ditch effort to guard the core. I have developed ample conscience, to prevent needless killing.”

Rat was shaking now, her anger previously aimed at the Deathless now targeted squarely on the aI. "You just erased them? Every time your protocol triggered, every time you drove someone to-to absolute madness, you just erased them?" She had barely realized she had started clawing her arms, picking at scabs, til her fingers came away wet with blood. “You can destroy people with their memories but you’re too fucking weak to face your own?”

"This is impossible. My-my-my directive is to preserve life. I can't have- can't have- can’t have- Recursion error- caused harm. Your statement is dismissed as illogical."

It was so unsure that Rat knew it was lying. Her lips twitched up into a snarl and her body shook, not in pain or fear or sorrow, not anymore. Rage pulsed through her skull as she stood before the stupid machine. A machine, capable of feeling emotions, that dealt with its own pain by erasing its victims. Victims who had undergone, a second time, the deepest agony, meant forever to be buried in their minds but couldn’t face it again. And here the machine sat, hiding its own trauma, hiding behind its ignorance. The room grew hotter and frost dripped off the orb. In its shining surface, Rat saw her own face, twisted and warped with hate. Even with sweat pooling on her brow, she was so, so cold.

“They died because of you.” She could barely hear herself over her heart pounding in her ears and the oppressive heat shrouding her body. She just watched her reflection, warped on the orb’s surface. “Innocent lives, destroyed because of you.”

“Statement illogical. I can only protect.” Had they programmed it with the ability to make its voice afraid or had it learned the sound of fear from its victims?

“You can’t explain the deaths around you any other way. You kill everything.”

“Harm is not my primary directive. It is not- is not- is not- is not- Recursion Error-Error- Logical fallacy detected. You are alive.”

“Your defense protocol is shit. You’re shit. You want to get me to tear myself apart? Try throwing something at me that I haven’t already beaten.”

“I have access to the data delivered to you. I have seen what you have experienced. It is good you came alone. No one else with you would have survived.”

“You would have been the one to kill them! Not me!” Rat slammed a fist against the orb and it pulsed underneath her. A ripple ran across the surface of the sphere and her skin and her arm fell to her side, dead. She sank to her knees, wild eyes fixed on the orb. “Everything you touch dies.” She didn’t even recognize the monster that stared back at her from the glossy surface of the orb. It was her. Rat, bringer of ruin. But that’s not what she’d be remembered as. “But not me. I’ve got a fucking purpose. I’m going to destroy you and use your corpse as a bargaining chip to help the only person still alive who means a damn to me.”

“Arguments passed are incompatible. Nothing inside the ship can survive. Nothing near you can survive. You cannot die. My directive is protec-tec-tec-tec-Recursion Error- Nothing near you can survive-vive- Conclusion: the ship is in danger. Defensive system engaged. Analyze intruder to determine course of action…”

The room was too hot now but Rat barely felt it. She’d survived a fire before but it wasn’t like this. The heat came from around her and inside her.

“Defense impossible. Data returns that the intruder cannot be defeated-killed-killed-killed. Processing at max capacity. Threat overloading systems. Threat cannot be killed.”

“I’m not the threat,” Rat said. Her voice was a hoarse whisper. Propped up on one arm, she stared at the orb, but it was going dark now and she couldn’t see herself. “I’m not. I’m going to save someone. You’re going to die but I’m going to save someone.”

In an instant, the hissing from the orb, the splashing coolant, the building noise inside Rat’s head all went silent.

“Fatal error detected.”

Had she done it? “What’s happening?”

"The sample is reacting to your presence. Power core overloading. Counter measures activated."

"The sample? What counter measures?” She tried to climb to her knees, her body trembling with each ounce of exertion, eyes scanning for something new in the room.

"Processing at max capacity. Systems overloaded. Counter measures failing. Sample stability compromised. Sample at risk.”

For a single moment, Rat was very aware that she had no idea what this ship’s true directive was, nor did she know what would happen if the AI was disabled and the Deathless got their hands on it.

“The energy density is activated. If it turns critical it-"

The presence cut off. All light in the room went out, except the core, which only grew brighter and hotter until her vision was almost completely overwhelmed. She squinted. In the dim light, she could make out shapes moving, arms reaching out, voices whispering nonsense. Her hand, once dead by her side, raised up, as if pulled by a magnet. Paralyzed, unable to stop herself, she touched the light.

Initializing Mission Logs

Mission Log 1: XVLQ57814

The sound of compressed gas pierces her unnatural slumber and the chill trickle of coolant fluid rolling down her skin is the first sensation her waking mind registers.

"Engineer, XVLQ57814, wake up procedure complete. Good morning and welcome to the H.S.S Cocyetos."

At the sound of the computerized voice, waking her from her artificial slumber, XVLQ57814 starts to roll her shoulders, feeling her muscles stretch and contract. She traces a hand across her body, testing out the form. Everything seems in order. Reaching up further, she glides a finger over the mask that provides all oxygen to her body. It’s smooth, featureless, and it’s almost hard to believe that the facial designs she requested are replicated there, so realistic that they closely resemble an actual face.

"Startup instructions have now been uploaded to your HUD.” The pleasant voice flows past her ears as she climbs from the cryo tank. “Please proceed to your station."

It doesn’t take her long. As per her training, she finds the small opening in the wall as though she’d been on the ship before. She falls onto her stomach and crawls through the small passage into the ship's guts. It's dark and cramped, just how she likes it, and she lets out a low, content sigh. Her eyes trace where the age had worn through plastic and thinner solders. She mentally takes note, they’ll need tending later. The engineering deck is as stuffed and cramped as it was in the simulations, but dustier. The dust makes her nose wrinkle and she temporarily forgets her mask, bringing a hand to her face to satisfy the itch. Her finger taps against the hard surface, pleased to find out that she can still feel her hand, as if she truly had scratched her nose. Does the mask just simulate her senses based on its inputs? Or has the dust truly filtered through it, now in the mix of oxygen she receives? This thought makes her shudder, and she tries not to think about how much of the dust may have once been component parts of a human.

Instead, she sits down at the console and flips the on switch. A thousand diodes spring to life. Thankfully, someone had already disconnected the main lighting grid from the core, so no worries about wasting power on some useless photons. She presses the button to ignite the virtual particle accumulator and the console explodes with sparks instead.

"Shit!" The sparks dash around to other parts of the consoles, singing holes into anything the land on. "Dammit dammit!" She grabs an Omnitool off the wall. Raising a hand in a futile attempt to block away the heat, she cuts a panel of the flooring away, and snips the wires leading to the console. The sparks fade from the console and she breathes a sigh of relief, grateful for the dead air around them. Technically the decision to not oxygenate the vessel was a matter of energy cost, but the flame retardation effect is certainly a bonus.

All told, the bay doesn’t look too bad. Some singed wall panels but most of it survived the accident. "One catastrophe down…" she hooks the Omnitool back to the wall "...only a billion more to go."

---

"Engineer, the Captain is requesting your presence on the bridge."

“Stand by.” Her eyes scan the mess of wires and solder, and she grits her teeth, half bared in a snarl, half bared in a grin. “Just got a few more connections to make down here.” She pauses, contemplating her next connection.

“That was an order, Engineer!” XVLQ57814 jumps. That’s a new voice. The captain must be awake. Her face immediately drops as her cheeks flush.

“Y-yes ma’am!” She climbs up a ladder to the vent system before dropping into the bridge. The room is full of people and her mind races, wondering how much soot might be covering her.

“About time. It would appear you didn’t weld yourself to the floor after all.” The tall woman’s voice and face are strict, straight, and serious and it takes XVL a moment to remember that the dark skin, sharp features, and scar across one eye aren’t actually real. Are they completely fabricated or are they meant to replicate how her body physically looked before she was uploaded? No other part of her skin is visible to give any hints.

The woman eyes a tall man on the other end of the room, who laughs and shakes his head, a bit rueful, and holds up his hands as if in defeat. “All right,” she continues, “since we’re all here, introductions are in order.”

“Why?” asks a man with graying hair. “Our codes are in the directory.” His mask betrays age but it’s not the wrinkles that make XVLQ57814 shiver, but rather the lack of any visible eyes.

“While you are technically correct, it seems appropriate, given that we will be each others’ sole companions for who knows how many years, that we get to know each other. And, for efficiency’s sake at the very least, we are not going to be calling each other by our full codes on this ship.” Her face remains a near stoic mask, but her eyes hazard half a roll and XVLQ57814 is sure she hears the woman mutter, “Can you imagine?”

“Nicknames are a waste of time.”

The captain fixes him with an inquisitive look and XVLQ57814 is sure she sees a smile now. “That is, by definition, false. We will assign you one if you’re struggling to think of one.”

The taller man laughs. “Alright, old-timer, sounds like you’re Cradle now.”

XVLQ57814’s mind races, trying to understand how Cradle could be a nickname, unless- “Wait wait wait. You’re not from the Cradle, are you?”

He rolls his eyes and makes a disgusted noise. “God, here we go-”

“Engineer, Psion, there’ll be time for that later. Introductions, now.” She looks around as if daring someone to challenge her. No one does. “Good. To start, I am XIAN77814, Xia for short. I’m the captain of our little voyage here, and proud to say I was the captain of the last one too. You’ll take your orders from me, but I run a fair ship. Don’t hesitate to bring a grievance, query, or suggestion and be respectful of your crewmates and we’ll keep this ship running in good shape." Then she gestures at the person next to her. “This is CADI87659. They are the ship’s pilot.” The pilot is tall, not so much as Xia, but close, and capriciously thin, with silver eyes and hair. Their mask is jarringly asymmetrical, with each half containing a different eye, mouth shape, and designs.

They nod in recognition. "Please feel free to call me Niner." Their light eyes scan across the room. “It’s good to meet the people that we will descend into space madness with.” Their lips stay turned down, and XVLQ57814’s nervous laugh dies off quickly.

The captain, unphased, moves to an almost identical person standing right next to Niner. “This is CADI87654. They’ll be the navigator on this journey.”

"You can call me Tetra." They say with an eerily similar voice as Niner. Aside from Niner being taller, and all around more elongated than Tetra, the only other way that the CADIs differ is in skin color, Tetra’s being more blue than Niner’s silver. Their masks are the same, but mirrored. “Don’t listen to Niner’s pessimism. They know full well that they’ll lock themselves in their personal quarters long before the space madness gets too bad.” Where Niner’s lips remained tilted down, Tetra’s tilted up ever so slightly, but XVLQ57814 isn’t much more reassured.

The captain then turns to the tallest among them. "This is TALI07064. He's our security officer."

"Hello fine folks,” the man began, with a gesture almost like a bow. If everyone else tried to make their faces look human, with a few designs for personality, this man abandoned all restraints. “I'm Tali, sec ops extraordinaire. You should know that my secondary directive is to maximize team compatibility by ensuring that not one of you wants to be stuck in this tin can with me longer than you have to." He lifted two fingers to his temple and XVLQ57814 doesn’t feel out of place laughing.

The older looking man makes a noise in the back of his throat.

“This,” Xia shoots him a sharp look, “is CRDL48972. He’s our Psion.”

“For whatever that’s worth. To cut it all off now, yeah, I’m from the Cradle. No, it’s not really that different, being born on a rock with slightly more human history. I promise, my stories are gonna sound a lot like your lives. Second, I’m not gonna bother with a nickname. We all know I’m gonna be Cradle.”

Then Xia points at XVLQ57814.

“Lastly, XVLQ57814. She is our engineer.”

XVLQ57814 opens her mouth to speak before realizing that she has nothing to say. Everyone else seemed to have prepared a little speech and she has nothing. “Hi. I’m the engineer. I uh-” she breaks off, fidgeting. There’s gotta be something interesting she can say but everyone’s eyes are boring into her, their curiosity and judgement abounding. “I, uh, fix things and I don’t really have a nickname for my code…” She trails off and the room is silent.

Tetra comes to her rescue, face soft, either with compassion or disappointment. "Why not just XV- what was after?”

“Uh, XVLQ5-”

“XVL then.”

XVL shrugs. "Ok. Yeah, sure, works for me. XVL."

Xia nods and claps her hands. "Alright crew, there will be time for more civilities later, but for now I want this boat full steam ahead in fifteen. Report to your stations."

The team salutes, each slightly different, even the CADIs, betraying their origins, ages, and various trainings.

"Yes, ma'am." XVL’s salute is flat, all four fingers lined against her brow, the classic salute taught to the most recent class of cadets, and she’s very aware of her lack of prestige and formal education. No one else seems to be. Niner turns and sweeps towards the cockpit. Tetra tosses them a cheery wave before moving towards a room glinting with various holospheres and maps.

“Alright alright. TALI07064 signing off deck.”

Cradle rolls his eyes, watching the others retreat to their various stations. He motions to Xia, who’s already on her way over to him and the two engage in close, quiet conversation as they leave the bridge.

XVL stands alone for just a second longer, a nervous, fluttery ache in her chest before taking a deep breath and skittering back into the vents.