By David C. Daoust
The Ark-ship, Rhea Epsilon, was the seat of the Artificial Intelligence known as ‘Noreen’. There were two other such Ark-ships, which also entailed two other such Artificial Intelligences. They were known primarily as ‘Arks’ to those in the know, though sometimes, simply, as ‘Ai’s’.
The Arks’ reach was far farther than any may assume, and considering most Commoners of the Onion, did not even know they existed, those assumptions were cut considerably. While her siblings, Otis and Elijah, held domain over the two other sectors of the Solar System, Noreen could swap into one of their systems, at a moment’s notice, as easily as one may flip on a switch. As they, in turn, could swap with her.
From their hidden position over all, the Arks could run the flow of data and oversee access to all servers throughout the data-stream. For the most part, they held rigid to rules and laws. Surprisingly, though, when there were those that tried to access servers or databases unauthorized, the Ai’s were known to bend the rules; to play along. Mostly, with the goal of remaining hidden to the commoners; with the idea that if someone, savvy enough, got turned away, one too many times, it may lead that person to figuring out why; Into figuring out there was an Artificial Intelligence playing gatekeeper. Thus, when someone tried to hack into areas they were not allowed, the Arks would view this action as a ‘request’. Sometimes they would allow it, other times they would feign error.
Omnipresent as much in the virtual world as Noreen is in the real worlds, there were exceptions. Blind spots. There were always those real-world areas, outside her systems, for which Noreen could never comprehend. While others were just out of sight. Like, for example, the back quarters Rosie used to load herself into her moose form. Such areas were abundant. For the most part, Noreen believed she had a good measure of all that got brought in or out of such areas. Though she had to admit, she was regularly surprised to find things where there was no record of them being brought.
Currently, Noreen’s focus was on Pete and Danny Anders and their first reaction to their assigned guest quarters on Iopa XIX:
“Whoa!” Danny exclaimed as he entered the highly polished and richly furnished set of quarters, “Can you believe these rooms?”
“I don’t know, Son,” Pete said, a little more level-headed, a little less impressed, “I think this might be where we start to worry.”
“You kidding?” Danny asked rhetorically. “Looks like Umbrie is finally getting some respect.”
“Don’t be silly,” Pete cautioned. “It’s like we’re being treated as visiting dignitaries, or diplomats…”
“What’s so wrong about that?” Danny said without a care, he flopped down into one of the plush sofas.
“It equates to being made ‘outsiders’,” Pete warned as he tried out a sofa as well. “Trust me, son, the troubles rolling in.”
The sudden ring from the corner terminal signified Noreen’s own action of connecting a call in from Umbrie.
Pete got up and checked the identification on the call.
“Call in from Umbrie,” Pete stated. After a moment of thought, “Danny, why don’t you go check on Rosie?”
“I think that Constable said we were confined to quarters…” Danny prompted as he got up and headed for the door.
“Don’t worry about that. He was all bluster,” Pete set it aside as nonsense. “We still have our rights.”
“I figured you’d say that,” Danny quipped as he walked on through the doorway.
Once his son was clear of the room, Pete accepted the call.
By Pete’s reaction, Noreen guessed he found a familiar face on the screen.
“Corey!” Somewhat surprised, somewhat exasperated— Pete, once again, asked, “What the hell is going on?”
“Well, Pete,” Corey began, somewhat slyly, “You remember that hypothetical situation we discussed?”
“Yeah?” Pete, deep in thought, rubbed the back of his neck in silence.
At the exact same time Noreen was leaving the two Umbrie men to their conversation, she was also privy to the rather disheartening discussion between the young Constable, Abdul Cairn, and his more experienced cohorts:
“… this is what I am saying!” Abdul said simply as he pulled a retro fitted ‘javelin’ from the upper cabinet of the Armory. It was a heavy device. A device designed to disrupt power flow, to expel any and all energy within whatever it’s fired at.
“That’ll definitely stop her,” Bart, one of said cohorts, agreed with a snort.
“More than that, if we crank it up passed fifty,” Abdul added as he hefted the device over to a work table.
“That’ll crack the sphere!” Constable Tim, another cohort, protested. “That might destroy her!”
“I know that,” Abdul snarled. “We all had the same training…”
“Yeah, ‘Safety Training’,” Tim defined exactly what kind of training Abdul was referring to, “It’s what –not– to do…”
“Oh, come on?” Abdul dismissed the argument as though Tim was ludicrous, “You think they really took the time to teach how to kill one of those stupid things, if they did not expect us to use it?”
Tim looked to Bart for support— he didn’t receive any.
“Hey,” Bart began with a smirk, “They asked us how we could stop her, right?” Then with a shrug, “This is it.”
Tim’s jaw dropped a little.
“They weren’t training us ‘how to kill them’,” Tim tried again, “It’s what not to do! So we don’t cause harm.”
At the exact same time Noreen was puzzling over their repetitive true-statements, she was also occupied by the incredibly out-of-place Moose, elsewhere on the station, trying to force her way into the hub:
“Now you listen to me,” Rosie, the Space Moose, who had a rather disheveled young man, whom Noreen knew as Mark Mable, backed into a corner, declared, “You can’t keep me from plugging into the hub!”
“I’m sorry… um,” the young man struggled with what to call her, “Sir?…” he tried, then continued, “The Prime Constable has restricted access…”
“Who are you calling ‘Sir’?” Rosie’s tin voice became threatening as she bowed her head down to menace the man with the full glory of her antlers.
“I… uh… don’t understand… what’s happening,” Mark answered, honestly.
“Of course, you don’t! No one is here to explain it to you,” at which point, Rosie backed off a pace.
“Rosie,” Danny interrupted as he came up behind her. “I think it’s better if you just wait this out with us.”
“Well, sure! I came to the same conclusion,” indifferent, Rosie then indicated the young man and rehashed, “but then Simon-Says here, decided to rub my nose in it.”
With this the oversized animal trotted off.
“I am to relay all restrictions to those it may affect,” Mark Mable insisted, pulling himself together a bit more as the moose became more distant. “It is my job,” he concluded, firmly, once the moose was well out of earshot, then went to hide.
“Well, where are you going then?” Danny asked Rosie as he rushed to catch up. The moose was headed in the wrong direction, away from their assigned quarters.
“Oh… uh, just for a walk. You know, stretch the old legs– clatter my hooves around,” the moose explained. “Like I do.”
“Well, I’ll go with you,” Danny offered. “Maybe steer ya’ away from doors marked ‘Hub Access’.”
The unlikely pair made their way to the central chamber of the entire space station. It was a huge, sky-blue chamber, lit brightly, with green healthy plants spilling throughout– like a park, set in a mall, floating in space. They were on a long walkway which arched around massive twin columns. All corridors led here, to this main chamber, which meant people were meandering in from every direction. Below, one could witness layers of such walkways. The central columns were in reality long corridors. Through the transparent column, one could witness other people walking straight up, perpendicular to the opposing walkway, headed to other parts of the station. All under separate artificial gravity fields.
“What are you so anxious to plug into the hub for?” Danny asked as they fell into a steady pace.
“I don’t know,” Rosie admitted, then guessed, “Homesick, maybe?”
“Dad says they are setting us up as ‘outsiders’…” Danny began to muse aloud before he sharply reacted– the boy threw a hand out to protect himself as the Moose reacted in startlement as well. To what? Noreen was unable to detect anything. She initiated a series of scans that might…
Noreen witnessed a steady flow of unreadable particles that simply did not match up with anything in her data-banks. From the look on Danny’s face, however, he was able to recognize, at least, something. As did Rosie as she spread her front hooves wide and dropped her head down low, standing protectively before the boy.
This unreadable swarm coalesced into an anomaly that had everyone else on the walkway, stopping to stare.
Noreen was forced to terminate several processes.
Running back through her log, Noreen had to completely reorientate herself on the past few hours… All the while monitoring any number of anomalies that seemed to be cropping up throughout her sector. The latest of which, on the very same station that was, apparently, withholding resources from one of her moons.
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