Chapter Six
Machine by machine, room by room, it seemed to take hours or even days as I unpacked, organized and catalogued everything in every room of the USS Last Hope. When the last room was finally done the long awaited message appeared.
< 3 attribute points availible>
I glared at the message before opening my stats and applying them to my Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence. There was no real reason to do so but I also had zero reasons not to. With a heavy sigh I looked around and realized I was in the biology labs. The machines in here were like nothing I had ever seen before. I turned on one of the many computers and one of the machines that held a large vat like tank on top of it. As soon as I did a new message appeared.
Humankind is more than likely killed on their home world. This mission is to save them from extinction and spread them across the stars.
□Grow a human
□Improve genetic code to survive
Grow human life? That was what I was supposed to do? In that moment I decided to find a way to locate any and all files that Jester may have hidden inside me and read through everything. I had to know just how bad it all was, if this was just another simulation. I had to.
Shutting everything off I ran for the 14th floor and back to my cradle. The moment I stepped back on it the wires connected themselves and I entered a black void once more.
This time I thought hard to bring up a system window, a console, anything that would allow me to dig inside myself. Nothing seemed to work at all. There was no other lights. The charging message was unchanged. I only had the darkness. Maybe I could use a computer to open the files.
"Abort Charging." I was not sure if that would work, but the intent it help me focus on allowed the system to understand and release me once more. I looked around this workshop and found a cable that may be useful. It took about an hour to locate any ports I could reach that matched anything I could plug into. It was located on the back of my neck and I rushed to plug in. The computer had already booted and i saw that it was the familiar windows 10 from years ago. Seemed the government cut corners on the budget. Of course.
Pushing those thoughts aside I typed at the computer. I was like a plugged in USB drive and came up in the My Computer section. I dived with figure through the folders. Deeper and deeper I went into my systems. Many were password protected or admin locked but deep inside I found one that was open labeled, X, just the single letter.
"X marks the spot is it?" I opened the folder and saw hundreds of files. I had no idea where to begin so I started with the first.
The human race had finally destroyed the only home we had in the galaxy. The use of nucular weapons as well as power and other pollutants had destabilized the planet to the point of no return. When I had signed of for the program it was already the beginning. Earth was rotting from the inside. The fires of the core was going out and people could no longer survive. Radiation broke through the atmosphere and destroyed all life. Humans went underground to survive but as always, war killed the rest. My mission was to find a safe place to begin construction of the Dysons sphere. This was a gigantic construction meant to be built around a star, and using it as an energy source to maintain life, either on the sphere or routed close by as power. It was truely a last hope. Once the sphere was complete I was meant to, create a new human. Genetically engineer a human that could survive harsher environments as well as tweaking them to be predisposed to keeping environments clean and pure and also making them less warlike.
I couldn't take it. They expected me to play god. Yep humans were extinct. So what did that make me? I was human. Or am I something else? Nathan Pres was truely dead and Cicero had been born from his ashes. I was a Phoenix. A machine? If I focused on this I would spiral and lose myself in the philosophy that I had no answer to. Instead I needed to focus. There was one last file in the hidden folder, a program of some kind. It was labeled, "Release". I hesitated but ultimately decided the Jester had not burned me so far. I started the program and waited.
I came too and realized I had shut down without warning. I was still by the computer and the prompt said I had been updated. The hidden folder was completely gone and no sign of anything I had read.
Craaaap. What did I do? Jester did say he was a virus didn't he? Why did I never put that together. It just never seemed important. Did he do something to me back then to make sure I was more accepting and open to his influence?
It seemed that whatever that was had updated my
A loading bar appears and slowly begins filling. I try not to move to keep from falling again. I had a bit of hope that things would improve and be better than I had found myself before hand.
Once the Update completed my stats looked relatively the same.
Labritory Experimentation
Workshop Construction
Repair
Navigation
AI Programming
Science
Engineering
Mathematics
Programming
It seemed that skills were seperated by degree of knowledge. I could not find how they were measured and there was not a metric to follow for growth, but it was still something. I looked at the
[Drone] 10+ rp
[Bot] 10+ rp
[Droid] 15+ rp
Ok. Ok now we were getting somewhere. It seems I could build other things to assist me around the ship. On top of that they could be purpose built instead of generic. My mind began to think of the options. Then a thought occured. Would I need to control them myself?
Scanning through my interface again the problem was solved simply when I found the AI Programming system. I was not sure how well this would work but if I had to guess it used my programming skill to give an outcome of the AI I built. At the apprentice rank I doubted it would be too useful but why not try.
[Basic] 10+ SM
[Novice] 10+ SM
[Apprentice] 15+ SM
Alright! I selected Apprentice and looked at the options.
[Apprentice] 15 SM
-Adaptive Learning- 20 SM
-Voice Command- 15 SM
-Input Command- 10SM
-Function- 5 SM
-Report Logging- 5 SM
-Slave Unit- 3 SM
This was a bit harder to decide. I wanted an AI but I feared Skynet. So far Jester had really helped me out with his new interface and I wanted to take full advantage of it. I decided to take the Voice Command, Function, Report Logging and Slave unit. The total came out to be 43 SM. I could figure out how to increase the memory later. For the time being this would be ok. Function allowed me to set the desired purpose of this AI. I knew I would be creating the different Workshop units so the Function was Automated Control. The Slave unit allowed the AI to be installed in multiple units that could be controlled from a console or if put into the ship as well, I could use the voice command anywhere on the ship. I was more than happy with this result.
I decided to open the workshop window and que the construction of a Repair Drone, Repair Bot and a Construction Droid. Drones were small flying objects the size of my finger and I planned to use them in small spaces. Bots were larger, think like the mouse bots from Star wars, the black robots on the Deathstar that squeaked. The could fix larger issues around the ship if need be. The Construction Droid on the other hand are large. They looked more like the multi-limbed units in Star Wars that floated around and shot at people. Usually seen on Hoth if I remember correctly. They had sensors around their head units and a multitool limb for different tasks. One was primarily for gripping and holding while the last of the limbs did indeed shot projectiles at objects that may damage it. It was mainly used for space construction and repairs.
The AI was connected to all three units and they were stored in bays in the workshop. The huge nature of the ship was just now starting to be understood by me.
Once that was done I tried to figure out if I may find a better reason for being out here. I could not imagine it was to build a Dysons Sphere and engineer new humans. Who would think that I was the best choice for such a thing. I sighed and decided all I could do was complete whatever quests popped up and hoped I saved anything human.