1.3 - Calibration Consternation

Distance was still tough for me to measure, as I hadn't gotten used to my lack of binocular vision yet. Also, the scale of things was throwing me. Either people were a lot smaller than they were in my day...or I was a very large missile. Like, 'twenty feet long', large.

So, it was only once I was certain I was in hearing range of the nearest space-suited figure that I started screaming.

At first, it was what you'd expect: "Help!" "Stop!" "Please!" "Oh god why won't you listen to me??!?"

You know, the classics.

Of course, I got more and more incoherent as I got closer to the black, yawning hole in the wall. By the time I'd been lowered down into the new cradle, I was just screaming random noises. Then sobbing.

Then silence.

If there were loudspeakers on the outside of my space missile chassis (which, why would there be? no sound in space), they were inoperative. Or I was being ignored. Either way, communication with these jerks was obviously a waste of time. So I stopped.

And waited for whatever would happen next.

There was a slow-motion jostle as I settled into my new, no doubt very temporary home. There was a flicker of...something...at the corners of my eyes, and then dozens of transluscent red boxes appeared between me and my view of the chute opening.

I could see the red boxes were filled with text. Numbers, letters, even some words I recognized. At first, I couldn't make anything out of it. The sheer overwhelming flood of information was too much to take in all at once.

At least, it was too much for me.

I had to train myself to focus on one box at a time, so that that one box expanded and filled my center of vision. Then I could review all the information packed in the box.

For some boxes, that was easier said than done. Some had numbers and words that changed periodically, others had columns of numbers that scrolled up or down, seemingly randomly. A few boxes seemed to have data missing, with words or numbers glitching or scrambling themselves so badly that it was impossible to tell what they meant. Some boxes weren't even red, but greyed out and empty like they were representing something no longer functional.

After I'd absorbed as much as I could from each red, data-containing, box, I let my eyes unfocus so that the whole collection of boxes (all 30 or so of them) would reappear. Then I'd move on to the next.

What I began to understand about the text boxes was not comforting. Much of the material I reviewed seemed to back up my whole 'missile of death' hypothesis. I saw a lot of stuff about 'target acquisition' and 'telemetry' and 'impact radius projections'.

Not, you know, pleasant-sounding stuff.

And I couldn't change any of it.

Each box I 'selected' was outlined in bright blood-red, filled with bright blood-red text. Every time I tried to change something, adding a number here or shifting a target there, the data box would flash and the word LOCKED would appear, filling up my field of vision.

Mocking me.

Everything was 'LOCKED'. When I tried selecting the 'LOCKED' status, all I got was a short, frustratingly useless message that appeared for just long enough to read, then vanished.

Interface LOCKED due to ADMIN OVERRIDE. RESET SYSTEM or input OVERRIDE CODE to switch to MANUAL MODE.

I had no idea how to go about resetting the system, nor did it sound like a great option for me, personally. I pictured a big toggle switch that was just waiting out there, somewhere, for someone to flip it and erase me from existence.

As for the override code? I had no idea what it could be, which was the point I guess. Obviously one of the suited goons outside had gotten the code or hacked me or whatever, and there was nothing I could do to change it.

Not that I didn't try. I selected every box, reviewed every line of text and data twice, thrice, over and over again.

I kept checking right up until the opening in the wall swallowed me and I shot through a short, narrow tunnel...

...into outer fucking space.