Site 0001
Main Room
Reboot complete.
Zen OS OAKc v 1.4
Last connection, 100+ days
Last update, 100+ days
Updates pending: 1 - v 1.41
152 Errors occurred last cycle.
Crash code: REACTOR_OL-DUMP_#07X
Halt updates.
OSC-01, the
proper OSC-01, came to in a general state of dismay. The damaged Overseer came to the realization of their predicament quite quickly, trying to push themselves of the ground as quietly as possible. Her reactor was almost totaled, generating a minimal amount of power. To make matters worse. her internal battery was damaged in the fire as well.
She stopped halfway up, realizing that she was not alone. People were still here- asleep. The Bouncers quickly came to her aid, resting her back against a wall on her silent command. She was missing her backup computer, and several other parts the likes had scavenged up. To top it all off, her backup host was missing. Trying to gather her pieces in this state was... impractical at best.
Looking around the room with their lopsided, corded head, OSC-01 looked at one of the Bouncers. Promptly, the better-suited Pixy unit disengaged from the body, leaving it behind as it fluttered across the room. It caaarefully extracted the crystalline battery from the collective pile the group had formed, and brought it back to their master. The Overseer clasped the battery gently and simply slumped, reducing their personal power draw to a minimum while they reviewed the stored memory from their last operating cycle.
With that, the Pixy unit skittered away, up and out of the room through the ceiling.
ISS Downrider
Engineering
While Greys fiddling was debatable at being effective the screen eventually shifted from the lines of code to another blank screen. After a moment, a new set of diagrams faded in. The entire right side of the screen was taken up by a front-and-back schematic nearly identical to the robot they had just taken out. Most of the outlined diagram was painted in greenish and yellow tints, the center circle around their back was pulsing a deep maroon. Several orange boxes of text scrolled by along the side,
likely diagnostic errors.
After a minute or so, one of the three green-eyed Pixy units scuttled their way into the quiet engineering and cargo bay of the small courier ship the wandering souls had called home. In a complete invasion of privacy, the Pixy unit floated silently through the bay, until it laid eyes on the working table the white-haired one and the previously established Grey had set up. There laid the codex, completely
violated. She simply couldn’t resist.
A distinctly feminine voice spoke up from behind- familiar to one but not to the other.
"I had figured you only wanted to tear it apart."
Grey hardly paused in his investigation of the text. Much more interested in actually trying to figure out the language than poke around the innards of a barely understood machine, at least for the moment. “Thought about it, but I figured actually trying to use it for something would be a much better way to spend my night.” Of course, he did at least glance back to make sure it wasn’t a massive robot instead of a tiny drone.
Marie reacted completely differently, as the sharp smell of ozone permeated in the air, she spun around in her seat, finger pointed at the voice...until she realized it was ‘just’ one of those little bobbles.
“And then study every component, see what we could and couldn’t use in the modern era, and then hopefully put it back together.” Marie replied to the now very much smaller Overseer.
Floating behind the two was a rather ghostly visage of the Overseer, wings folded proper and standing straight even through their feet- and robes for that matter, were nonexistent. The volumetric display appeared to be stitched together by a rudimentary system using lights, nanomachines, and mirrors being controlled by the Pixy unit. Over time, the polygonal geometry of the projection refined. Something appeared off about them at first though- the colors were mismatched. White for black and black for white.
The visualized Overseer looked between the two, sharing an internal bit of humor at the finger pointing. The voice stayed cool, but carried a tone of subtle passive aggression.
“If you can, I’d like to keep it together for now.”
In a wave starting from the top and flowing downwards, the display of the Overseer shifted and corrected itself. The colors reverted, and the white and earthy green robes were stitched back together over the display, ending in a wispy, faded plume. They looked directly at Marie.
“I don’t believe we’ve met. I am OSC-01, an Oakland Heavy Industries Overseer Model T."
Marie only stared at the Overseer for a bit. “Given that my first proper meeting was you and your robots trying to kill me, no. And too late, I’ve popped off the processor’s cover to inspect the circuitry inside already. I hope you’re not currently concerned with warranty.”
“I’m pretty sure that would have been voided when we almost dropped a ship on it.” Grey said simply, closely inspecting and memorizing the lines of text.
OSC-01 gave a short, stifled chuckle. She kind of liked these two. She soon returned to her usual demeanor, however.
“I reviewed the saved memory from my last cycle. Quite a number, it did.”
The translucent image of the Overseer swept over and through the table to be on the other side- at a more comfortable angle.
“Something in the last update I was sent contained a rather intrusive virus. Something that shouldn’t have been possible with my code construction. I’ve isolated the whole package for now, for further review.”
“Sounds like some form of malicious cyberattack.” Marie replied as she isolated a glob of fluid in a test tube, her other hand over the book examining what made it tick. “Attacking the time and date control, I’m guessing? Breaking anything that required a decent verification system?”
“Think the reason for it is more important. Well, to the overseer anyway. It will only be important to us if we find another facility.”
The blue glob was rather firm, bouncing back into its shape quickly after being bent or pressed. The calmed Overseer remained stock still, their green eyes blinking once.
“It seemed to exploit a vulnerability in a layer lower than I operate, but I haven’t had time to run analysis.”
This was good, she already had extracted one bit of valuable information from the two. There wasn’t much she could do to politely nudge them to stop dissecting her backup host, but the two hinted at more.
“So, potentially it’s OS subversion or something. Well great.” Marie stated, continuing to feel the processor tick. “Software is where I lose my touch, most of what I know about that is from breaking things I shouldn’t.”
Marie got up to go get herself an energy drink from the small canteen on the ship. They were awful for a person’s health, but they were great for all-night research.
“One of your little ball things for some reason treated me like it did you, by the way.” she continued, slowly walking across the room.
Marie’s movement across the room finally caught Grey’s attention somewhat, particularly as she nicked an energy drink. On checking the time via his own mental reminders, he sighed. He really wanted to look at this more, but frankly, there were limits to what a creature of flesh and blood should do. He knew all too well what would happen if he started pulling multiple all nighters. And one good allnighter deserved another.
“I don’t need to go completely insane again. If I stay up all night i’ll just do it again.” With that, he started rummaging round in a nearby pack, until he found a small syringe labeled ‘emergencies only. Apparently, being tempted to stay up all night qualified. Largely left uncontested in his newfound quest for sleep, he quickly found himself konked out in a chair, his features slowly, well, doing what they did best, and not staying the same.
“G’night, then.” Marie replied, slightly surprised that his choice of sleeping aid was
a syringe, as she took a long quaff of her energy drink and continued working. This time, though, she pushed the book aside for a large quantity of other spreadsheets, some that appeared like...armor.
“The Pixys are made to work, not so much to think.” OSC-01 said as she looked between the two, taking note of Grey’s apparent…. Shape-shifting. This was an odd bunch, that much was sure.
“Their recognition failed.” Marie criticized as she continued to draw in her blueprints, not even caring how Grey’s face just sort of...shifted. “I’m not the best at machine intelligence but the recognition was pretty bad.”
“It saw that strange electrical field of yours, and likely thought it was talking to me.” OSC-01 also noted the sketches of various armors and devices. Some of them looked familiar from memory.
“I take it you’ve worked with that screaming boy?”
“Some.” she told the Overseer. “Though, never directly. We were both part of the experiment in some way, him through illegitimate coercion and I through ignorance.”
“He wants me to fix his bracer. Remove the speaker so it’s less...abrasive, I’d say.” she continued. “I...want to redesign it entirely. It’s awful. I hate seeing my twelve-year-old work.”
OSC-01 gave another suppressed hum, as if blowing air through non-existent nostrils.
“Screaming your tactics only works on the timorous.”
As if by otherworldly coincidence, the prodigal noisemaker returns, groggy and with a cup of coffee, struggling to wake from both the injury and a night full of what could be dreams of anything as long as they were terrifying to him.
“
Marie… I think it’s time to take this damned thing of-” Reman’s train of thought was interrupted by a small little damaged robotic unit, sitting hapless on the table. This gave a thoroughly good spook to Reman, as he backed up quickly, tripped and fell, spilling coffee all over his legs, adding to his collection of various stains and fluids on his jumper. He weakly replies with; “
Y- You brought the thing on the ship?!” trying to ignore the hot beverage he spilled on his trousers that is currently causing him great pain.
OSC-01, or rather the display of, spun around to face the returning bumbling nitwit. Parts of the projection got hung up in midair, taking a moment to catch up with the rest. They replied serenely, barely masking a tone of impudence.
“I let myself in, Squall.”
Regardless, it was time to take that damned thing off. “
B- Besides the fact that you brought something that just tried to eradicate us on our ship, are we still good to go to get this thing and scrap it, so I don’t have to live with it’s… nuances?”
Reman stood up, finished what was left of his now half-full coffee, and put his arm in plain view of marie. Reman, still oblivious to the arcane asks, “
If it’s some sort of ‘magic seal’ you could probably take it off, right?”
“Probably not.” Marie replied. “If it was a seal the only way I could would be to scratch and break the seal.”
“
Then, how the hell are we going to get this thing off? Breaking it? Somre sort of arcane… Cryptography? User Recognition?” Reman replied, clearly stressed to be so close to removing the brace to end it here, not being able to take it off.
“If it’s
that idiot who made most of this, he’s probably been sloppy as hell and left the seal somewhere he shouldn’t.” Marie replied, making space for Reman to stick his arm. “Even more reason for me to completely redesign this thing.”
OSC-01 spoke up as she continued to take in all the information she could on this ship, and its rather peculiar crew. She was rather… tongue-in-cheek for her situation.
“You could cut it off.”
Reman, almost in defiant retaliation of the hapless book robot, spun a disc of wind, and tried to cut the bracer loose, to no avail, as it only sparked a little before showing no signs of damage. “
Tried it. I even tried cutting off the arm, too.” Shortly afterward, reman set the brace down on a nearby working surface, and gestured for marie to go to it.
OSC-01 looked between the two as the white Pixy rested itself on the edge of the desk. The hologram remained in place behind it. As the two went on in a diatribe, the Pixy made a swift movement, quietly flipping the cover back onto the exposed processor in the book. These fools were going to get dust in it.
She didn’t quite understand the tech these two were talking about, and quite frankly, she didn’t much care. She did want, however, what she came for.
”The blue-haired one, she said she was the captain of this…. Vessel. Was she correct?”
Unsure of whether or not the group should trust this murderous novel, Reman replied cautiously; “
Y-Yeah, why?”
OSC-01 simply lifted their head, looking straight on in thought. These two were no longer of use for her time. One was unconscious, but it was going better than anticipated, no one had shot anyone.
"...So I shall go have a conversation with them."
With that, the Pixy pressed off the table, floating up and away from the two. The holographic Overseer stuck their fan-like wings out, before forcing them down as it spiraled up from the bay floor without another word. It gave an impressive mirage of the robot simply phasing through the ceiling as it ascended away, but the illusion was short lived as the Pixy unit had to scurry back into the night the way it
physically came.
---
Site Main Room
7 AM, A Much More Reasonable Time
Dahlia snored, her mouth agape long enough to allow a bit of dust to enter her windpipe. The scholar coughed, irking themselves back into wake. She wiped her eyes as the shifted back and forth on the now-deteriorating sleeping pad, blinded by the now shining sun wafting in through the brand-new skylights. It was a clear day, the overcast storm looming over the forest having finally moved on.
Dahlia finished wiping her face, before opening her eyes to face the first inherent challenge of the day. The holographic Overseer was standing- or rather floating, a few feet away form her and looking down upon the scholar for who knows how long. Dahlia about slammed her head against the psychic dome of force surrounding her, and with a serious of disgruntled and incomprehensible noises that came naturally with being alerted from sleep, lurched over to sweep the floor in an attempt to quickly find her gun.
"Calm," said the vigilant specter, loud enough to wake anyone else still nearby. It was going to happen eventually, might as well deal with alll of the possible knee-jerk reactions here at once.