Chapter Fifteen: Vague Misperception — Part 1

Shadow’s computer was smarter than most, using every sensor at its disposal to keep tabs on Xeti’s position within the ship. Having determined that Xeti was on the ship, it followed the only clues it had as to Xeti’s position, keeping the security drone in constant lethal proximity. If a hatch opened and work was being done, then it would go there and wait, ready to strike should Xeti prove himself up to no good. The intelligence and determination the computer’s AI programming exhibited was unnerving to Xeti, who had never had a problem staying undetected when he chose not to be seen. It was probably alien technology, something that only added to Xeti’s discomfort. He tapped his fingers nervously on an electrical conduit that needed repair, distracted by the thought. Would alien technology kill him simply because it felt him a threat? He didn’t want to take that risk, seeing as Shadow was such a violent and eccentric personality.

Xeti took the time to familiarize himself with his environment, since he had finished maintenance, and hadn’t decided, just yet, how to confront the program and convince her of his good intentions. The ship was designed for a crew of five. One pilot, one copilot, a weapon’s chief, an engine tech, and a medic. Five people could sit comfortably in the front; though the ship could host six crewmembers it had not been designed to. The computers were acting like a full crew was doing a system-wide checkout. Roxy had come on line, tripling the efficiency of the computer system. Xeti had never imagined an AI working so fluidly and efficiently. Roxy knew her tasks, and worked them without pausing to access data files. She even hummed to herself while she worked down a checklist only she could see. The drone followed him even though he was invisible to all frequencies, and even though Roxy’s simulated attention should have been fully disposed to her tasks. He began to feel a little invaded when the drone tried to follow him into the bathroom, so he finally gave up and allowed himself to be seen, his hands in the air.

“What the hell are you?” Xeti asked the Drone.

“That is my advanced security drone. It isn’t me. I’m Roxy, and Shadow’s given me the awesome task of making sure her ship is safe from intrusion and sabotage. I don’t trust you at the moment, so you are under surveillance and house arrest.”

“You’re one sophisticated AI program.”

“As if.” Roxy sounded insulted. “I, sir, am a prodigy child.”

“DNA and personality matrix scanned and stored in a computer accessible data crystal. Aren’t those illegal?”

“Shadow’s a smuggler, honey. She’ll reverse me when she gets enough cash to do it.” Roxy said.

“I didn’t know it was reversible.” Xeti said. “I’ve never heard of anybody reversing a prodigy child. How do you know she’s telling the truth?”

“She doesn’t run around the ship hiding behind a biodistortion field, for one thing. Unlike you, Shadow never lies, in action or in word.” Roxy said.

“How did you find me, anyway?” Xeti asked.

“You disrupt atmosphere, and that disrupts various sensors. You also disrupt contact sensors on the floor. There is nowhere you can go that I won’t find you, even shielded from sight. And I’m not letting you off this ship until Shadow comes back and interrogates you.” Roxy said smugly.

Xeti felt his eye twitch involuntarily. Rather than continue the conversation, which was beginning, as far as he was concerned, to border on the insane, Xeti finished his business in the bathroom and went back to work. He wanted to be finished when Shadow got done with her shopping. He didn’t want to get on the Captain’s bad side his first day on the job, especially with a loud mouth Prodigy Program watching his every move. Shadow was a strong woman who knew what she wanted, and Xeti appreciated that. Such a woman would be a good friend, if she would accept him as one. Of course, if Roxy told her of his abilities, she might hate him simply for the color, or lack there of, of his skin. The normal people, he had learned, could never accept him as a living thinking being with emotions, and therefore, could never be friends. He hoped Shadow would prove him wrong. In the meantime, Xeti hummed to himself, unconsciously humming the same tuneless melody that Roxy had been humming before. Within a few minutes, Roxy ordered the drone to return to its normal patrol station, and left Xeti to work undisturbed.

While Xeti was busy being grilled by Roxy, Didi was busy learning just how deeply she could blush. Shadow stould next to her, giggled as yet another man checked Didi out, smiling affectionately in passing. To be walking down a crowded city street in a pair of boots and nothing else was something of a novelty to Didi, who had never been around others while naked, except in the public showers she had experienced during her growing up on a military base. Around her, the streets seemed to be a controlled aspect of chaos. She wasn’t the only nude person to be walking down the street, but she was the only one her age. Most of the women were less nude in that they wore chokers made of fluffy red feathers, black polished leather, or glowing neon tubing. The men, for the most part, walked around in sandals and a loincloth, or in full clothing, but rarely fully disrobed. Didi looked left, catching the hint of a smile pass across Shadow’s lips as she nodded to a fellow pedestrian who was careful to pass on her right. As Didi was on her left, nobody dared cross on that side. Shadow, obviously, was taking advantage of some local cultural norm that Didi had been heretofore oblivious to. That smile twitched again across Shadow’s face, until she noticed Didi looking at her.

“You’re enjoying this aren’t you?” Didi said, trying to seem nonplused, despite the fact that she was getting a lot of visual attention.

“I like watching how the others react to you. It reminds me of my younger years.” Despite the nostalgic smile on her lips, Shadow kept a ready hand on her sword, and the previously innocent smile would suddenly flash teeth if anybody approached too closely.

They walked for only a few minutes along the Hub’s pristine streets to a corner shop. The city itself was almost totally automated. The way it was structured, and the way people moved along its streets made the Hub a living work of art from the air; a transient, organic composite hewn in modern technology. In its bowels was little art, however, as the city was one of limited culture. Self-repairing, self-cleaning, with soft sidewalks, hover tracks for cargo, and trees growing in, out of, and amongst the buildings, the Hub was not only a self sufficient city, but a true sentient entity. More than just a metal and concrete superstructure, the Hub was the Center of Commerce and Agriculture for all of Grid, and the city itself was kept alive and automated under the supervision of an AI program so complex that even its code writers were skeptical as to how they would duplicate it. Recently, however, the program had been strangely absent of personality, as if its soul, its computer generated essence, had been drained from it. Still, even silent and unemotional, nobody would doubt that the Hub was something truly alive.