![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rustydragonflyFandom(s): Original ("trainverse" by pointytilly)
Character(s)/Pairing(s): original characters, no pairing
Wordcount | Rating: 15588, R for some swearing, though aside from that and the aforementioned warnings, should be reasonably safe
Content Notes/Warnings: mild medical issues re: overheating/heatstroke, partial temporary possession
Summary: Arleen Kendrick is grounded. More accurately, her ship's grounded, and the repairs aren't enough to keep a bored programmer from wandering. Wander she does—straight into a project with a paranoid computer.
Acknowledgments: My thanks go to:
pointytilly, for letting me use their world and characters, being so patient with my constant "ahh these aren't mine I'm going to screw them up moments" and helping me edit my scrawlings into a coherent story.
bliumchik, for the fantastic mix, great art, and kind words.
pointytilly owns the setting the characters of Arleen, Sam, and Gregg, and Blue and the swarm's species. Blue and the swarm themselves are mine.
Listen to the mix here!
- Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 -
The swarm's motions became more frenzied, as though every last one of them wanted a look inside. Arleen waited for a reply, but they were entirely engrossed in the task, their mind stretched thin. She knocked on the door again, but there was nothing else.
And then there was a click.
deactivated. loose. distinct... very... poor design. The swarm slowly pulled away, their bodies all streaming through the cracks and holes like water from a funnel. Arleen stepped back as the door swung open with a clang. Hot air rushed out, enveloping her in a blast.
"Blue?" Without another word, she ran inside, fanning herself from the heavy air. Blue lay motionless on the floor, sprawled out over the metal. Arleen felt a tingling jolt shoot through her body as she crouched down beside her. "Blue, are you there?" Arleen lifted Blue in her arms — even her body felt heavier than it should, and Arleen carried her out leaning backwards under her weight, setting her down on the floor outside.
"You," she said, looking back at the swarm. "Go back to the control room. I left my bag, there's some spare water in there. I need it."
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the swarm drift off in wordless obedience as she bent over the still motionless Blue. Pulling back her lips, exposing too-pink gums, she felt her damp yet welcome breath.
She waved a hand in the air, feeling for the feeble yet still cooler vent drafts, and pulled Blue into a better spot.
Blue twitched, her eyes flickering open for a second. She let out a low "mrrroo" of protest, one paw swiping lazily at nothing.
"Yeah," Arleen said, "Don't talk to me about work either." Hearing a low buzz behind her, she looked to see the swarm return, their bodies wrapped around a partially-drunk water bottle. Arleen took it from them, feeling individual bodies tickle her fingers as they retreated, and unscrewed the top. It was warm, she felt, warm and likely nasty now. Nevertheless, she cupped one hand and poured it in, sprinkling it over Blue's face and paws where her coat was thin. "Come on, you, it's not so bad out here." She poured more water over Blue's body, until she twitched in response, eyes flickering again.
"Fsss...stop it!" Blue swiped again, but this time a claw reached Arleen's hand, catching in her skin and leaving a shallow scratch. Arleen hissed herself in surprise, but ignored the blood as Blue pushed herself upright, her body half-draped over the floor.
"I'd like to say I told you not to wander off," said Arleen, "but I didn't."
Blue shook her paws out and tested her weight. The swarm descended on her, little black bodies clinging to her hairs. She cast a glance at the open door, swinging loosely on its hinges. "Is it fully deactivated?"
There was only an isolated lock.
"I think I need to check something," Blue said. She padded off toward the door, and a few of the swarm clung to her coat before breaking away, reluctantly rejoining the group.
"You good?" Arleen said, turning her attention to them.
I believe a few of me were lost inside the mechanism.
"Oh, is that—"
It should not be a problem. What there is left will mate.
"Ah. Good on you, then."
But the swarm didn't stay by to listen to her, instead drifting back toward the door. Arleen followed, bracing in the face of all the hot, heavy air that had yet to dissipate.
"Blue, what are you doing?"
"You should know." Blue sat hunched over the floor, one paw tracing circles across the smooth surface. Arleen knelt beside her to see, the swarm hovering behind them. On the floor lay claw-marked grooves — not the random scratchings of a frightened creature, but something with purpose and direction.
Arleen didn't know the script — it looped and spun in multiple directions and flowing curves, but she knew the pattern. As Blue traced it, she saw it on the highest level: a series of circles, all spiraling into one another in a complex dance of symbols, until they all met like water flowing down a drain. At the very centre lay an empty circle, and it was here that Blue's paw rested.
"It's a personality script," Arleen said.
"One I might have finished if you hadn't gotten me out in time," Blue said.
Was that Blue admitting that she couldn't solve the puzzle? Arleen leant over to get a closer look at the unknown variable. "I'd like to give that a try." But down here, she knew, it was a worthless pile of symbols. The computers outside the control room wouldn't allow them such deep access, and the control room was still frozen.
The swarm descended upon the design, unperturbed by the heat. You could not have calculated this alone.
"I'm not sure I was alone." Blue raised her paw and shook it as though it were covered in something nasty, and backed off from the pattern. "Stupid, isn't it? You can't even use it down here!" She twitched and flattened her ears, turning away. "I need some cold air."
"Me too," Arleen said, giving the patterns one last look. She stepped out into the corridor, taking a few deep breaths of vent air. So what did all this mean? They needed access to the very core to work with something like that. "So you have an interface too. That's not so unusual, then."
"Yes, but I never liked it," admitted Blue. "Don't like having... things in my head like that. Not when they barge in!"
"It wanted to tell you something?" Arleen shifted from one foot to the other.
There was a click, and Arleen whirled around to see — just in time to see the lights on the furthest door, locked and forgotton, switch colours. It swung open, loose and unguided, the sound echoing through the passage, and before it hovered the swarm, nearly lost in the darkness.
That is correct.
Blue stepped forward, but Arleen held up a hand. "Wait a moment," she said. "Blue? Do me a favour. Back in the control room, get my bag for me, yeah?"
Another muscular twitch ran over Blue's shoulders, causing her fur to ripple. She turned and left, though her ears were turned backwards, listening out for anything that might be going on behind her. Arleen watched her go, but quickly turned her attention back to the swarm.
"Right then," she said. She crouched down, more to alleviate the sudden unsteadiness in her legs than anything else, and looked up at the creature floating in the doorway. "So it has something to say to us. Nice. I don't suppose it could turn the lights on, could it?"
The swarm floated downwards, hovering in front of Arleen's face. Sorry. Is something wrong?
You bet there is. "I've been able to feel this system's interface since I came here, but it's been less co-operative than the manual inputs. And you..." She looked closer at the swarm, so close she could just about see its individuals right in front of her eyes, so close they fluttered in the wake of her breath. "You don't have one, do you?"
No. Where would I put it?
"Quite. I mean, Blue and myself, we've got brains. But you... you don't so much have a brain as you are a brain. You haven't got anything for an interface to go inside. You ever been able to link before?"
Of course. I don't need an interface. Though the swarm's mental tone remained as level as ever, Arleen thought she could detect a note of pride in there.
"I have to wonder which one of us this machine's having an easier time getting through to, then."
Do you mean— the swarm began, but they never finished, and even if they had, Arleen wouldn't have listened. Blue was returning, dragging the bag behind her with the strap in her teeth.
"This is way too heavy," she said, spitting it out.
"I'm sorry." Arleen said, hefting up the bag and rummaging around inside. "Here," she said again, pulling out a pen and half-crumpled sheets of paper. "Sorry, can you do me another favour? Copy down that chart on you did in something we can all read."
"Blue, do everything..." Blue said, but she gladly accepted them. "Next it'll be Blue, save my life. I'm looking forward to that one." Her ears perked forward, her eyes wide, and Arleen felt it was the cat equivalent of a smile.
"Now then," she said, slinging the bag over her back (it was heavy, but like hell she was going in there without it), "once she gets back, how about we take a look in there?"
The swarm floated back toward the door, curiously extending parts of itself inside. Do you need light?
"Seems if we want light," Arleen said, "we're going to have to find a light switch. Seems to me you can find it, too."
That is correct.
"Yeah," Arleen said. Funny, isn't it? That's what you said before.
-
If she listened hard enough, she could hear it: a faint, rapid clicking on the very edge of hearing. The swarm clung to her shirt, tugging and guiding her through the darkness. Each step she took was careful and deliberate, making sure nothing was underfoot. Occasionally she felt Blue's warm, fluffy form brush against her legs. She too stuck close, unable to see a thing in the all pervading dark.
There are stairs up ahead. The swarm tugged harder, and Arleen tried to follow. Sure enough, as she stepped forward, she felt the first block underfoot, and another, and another. She reached out and felt a cool, metal wall with her hand, leaning on it to steady herself a little. Behind her she could hear a series of little thumps as Blue took each step one leap at a time, the sound of her impact echoing through the air, each one returning over and over until the clicks became drowned out by the endless whumph, whumph, whumph.
"Teach me to talk about light switches," Arleen said.
I have not yet been able to find one that works.
Arleen felt the air shift slightly in front of her face as the swarm swirled around. "This better be the way to the stores," she said.
So far it is. However I suspect that there will be more to it than that. Have you considered why the door opened at all?
"I couldn't not have."
Then I think — wait. I might have something.
The lights stuttered on, illuminating the dull metal stairway. For just a second, Blue's eyes flashed gold and green, and the swarm hovered by Arleen's face — and then it died away, fading to blackness before Arleen's eyes had a chance to adjust. It flickered again, weakly this time, and then faded into nothing. Arleen tested her footing on the stairs, feeling the drop behind her. Just an ordinary step, she told herself, not something she'd fall down... "So you did find that light switch."
Indeed.
She stayed still. They could see her. The blackness didn't matter. "And you were going to tell me how the door opened."
I know how it opened.
"You do, do you?"
Yes. Because I opened it.
Arleen heard a terrible hiss as the lights flashed back on, and in that second she saw Blue, yellow eyes gleaming, coat raised into spikes, claws extended. She saw Blue tense her muscles, and leap...
"No!" The lights died away again, and she was left blinking away the bright spots in the back of her eyes. That was when she felt the air part, felt the swarm's multitude skim past her face as they dodged Blue's leap. Blue collided head on with her, a heavy weight right in her chest, and she stumbled backwards, reaching out into black nothingness...
..and snatched a rail in her hand, steadying herself and backing away from the invisible scene. She gripped the rail tight, though her hands were slippery with sweat, and listened out for any sign of Blue. Don't bother trying to hide, she told herself. There isn't any point. They know you're there.
"Weren't joking when I said you didn't need an interface." She gazed up, at nothing. It just felt like the right thing to do.
Behind her, she heard the faintest of sounds before Blue nudged her hand with her forehead, a gentle I-am-here gesture. She reached backwards with her free hand and touched Blue on the shoulder, her fingers sinking into the thick fur. Beneath her hand she could feel the steady, rapid vibration of Blue's heartbeat, so intense it shook through her entire body.
"I wouldn't try that again," Arleen said. It was all she could think of to say.
"So my aim needs work." Arleen felt the usual dismissive ripple run through Blue's coat as she spoke, but Blue simply nudged her again.
Above their heads, she sensed the clicks as the swarm drifted onward, watching without eyes.
-
Arleen knew paper as something that was just...there. It was something to scribble down notes on, then recycle with the rest of the ship's trash when they lost meaning. It wasn't something that really mattered, something that tied her world together. Paper was just a thing.
But when her hand closed upon Blue's script in her bag, it became the world — dry and crackly, useless in the dark, yet probably the most valuable thing she owned.
There were other things in there too. There was the water bottle, nearly gone. Arleen considered finishing it, but deep inside she thought no, save it. Whatever it was inside her that said that, she didn't want to become well acquainted. So she focused on what was there: the bag, full of mostly junk, Blue's warm body pressed close to her, a whole world of touch and irrelevant things that were suddenly very, very important.
It was easier, anyway, to think that a bit of paper was more important than a bottle of water. Still ludicrous, but a little more normal, and a little less... close to the deep part of her that the dark thoughts came from.
That was when her hand closed over something she didn't expect. “Wait!” she said. “I thought I left this on my bed!” She pulled out the phone and flipped it open.
The little screen flashed into life. A cold light spilled over her hands and lent a shadowy outline to Blue's nearby figure, ears and fluff and whiskers and gleaming, yellow eyes.
"No signal," she said. She tried to hide the disappointment in her voice, but Blue gave her another nudge that spoke as clearly as telepathy. I know, sucks, doesn't it?
Of course there'd be no signal. It had been bad enough without the lockdown, when she'd been in her quarters nearer the outdoors. But she'd been hoping, in the way of children and the extremely uncynical, that if she didn't think about it failing it might well not.
And it was better than idly wondering if swarms ate corpses if nothing else was around.
"Light," said Blue. "Nice. Maybe we can go somewhere now?"
Arleen looked over at her. In the darkness it was near impossible to make out her expression, but she had that perked-ear look again. "It's not much." She and Blue stood in a little circle of light, and when she moved the commlink around it did little more than lend a few hazy outlines to the darkness.
But it was enough... for a cat.
"You're blind," Blue said. "Don't worry. It's not your fault. Hold that thing still, will you?"
Arleen stopped, vaguely self-conscious. She'd been trying to see, flashing the light into every little corner.
Light steadied, Blue didn't wait for her. She got to her feet and set off, and Arleen slung her bag back over her shoulder and followed, still holding the light. As her eyes adjusted, she could see a little better what was around her, the ghostly outlines of piping and wires close by, half seen in the shadows. She kept a firm grip and tried not to think about how long it had been since she'd last put any charge in the thing. Past the outline of Blue's fur, she could make out another staircase...
Blue took the steps in her usual several at a time leaps, not caring about being quiet even as they neared their destination. No sense in worrying about sound giving them away, Arleen thought, or about the light. The swarm knew where they were. So did the system. Arleen wondered what it must be like, to be able to feel things walking through yourself. And she thought of Blue, and the way she'd hissed and flattened her ears when she thought of the system being inside her head.
"I've never been up here," Blue said. "Keep shining that ahead. And I don't know how I'm going to open the door up top, but just keep shining it."
Good idea, Arleen felt. Just shine the damn light and keep walking, at least you can get somewhere that way. Blue leapt onwards until she was a dim, round shape that Arleen could barely see until she moved. When she stopped, she melted back into the darkness.
When Arleen caught up with her enough to resolve her figure again, Blue sat crouched down, staring right ahead. Arleen could only make out a doorframe — beyond that, darkness that even Blue couldn't see through. It swallowed up her feeble light, leaving them with the stairs behind and the unknown ahead.
"Shit," she said, to nobody in particular.
"So," Blue said, "you'd say this was bad, then? I can't decide."
The doorframe opened out into nothing but blackness—blackness through which the swarm must already have passed.
-
I-that-is sped through the nothingness.
Outside of them the world was one of motion and steel. They hovered and danced through the air, an invisible black cloud in the dark. And they stayed in a thick, bunched form, the outside seeing with clicks and motion. The inside saw nothing. Inside they were a mess of layers, some of them overlapping and mingling, all full of codes and panic. Tiny individuals buzzed and swam through the sea of selves, each one never knowing the full extent.
There wasn't one to know. The layers formed a chaotic mess inside. I-that-is was not. And the core, the innermost self, knew only one thing. There was another door coming up.
They landed on it. The core felt dimly aware of some code in the upper levels, of the outer selves working away at the lock. There was something important about doors. Something that they'd remembered for the last one too. And if there were only enough of them to know more, they'd remember.
But what was it?
Anyone able to see, in some shape or form, in the near-complete darkness, would have seen the door slide open and the dark cloud pass through—if they looked closely.
If they looked really closely, they might have been able to see a few trailing individuals nudge it ajar while the rest passed.
-
Arleen tilted the light toward the open doorway, and the edges shone, a gleaming outline against the black. "I think — hey! Where are you going?"
Blue didn't wait for her. She bounded through, heedless of the danger. "Stop waving that light around! Come in! You should see this."
"By 'this', do you mean something that's going to devour us all horribly?"
"Don't think so," Blue said. "I don't think any of these would do that even if they could."
So Arleen stepped through.
The first thing she was aware of was a sense of vastness — not like the passages outside and the narrow, metal stairwell. She could make out a plain ceiling, if she shone her light directly upwards, but if she shone outwards, there was no telling where the far wall lay. She didn't need a light for that, though: the way her footsteps echoed and the very air itself told her that this was somewhere big.
And if a room was big out here, someone must have had a damn good reason to make it so.
The reason became clear when she saw what Blue had. Rows and rows of columns, standing like some army of giant building blocks, ghostly and faint. She could make out no markings or signs beyong the faint glow of running medical electronics, but she didn't need to. Her hazy blue light told her all she needed to know. This was where everyone lay, vital signs suspended and waiting for rescue.
It could not have been more than a couple of hours since the base had been a whirlwind of light and sound and movement, yet now it was as though she were peeking into some ancient tomb, one laid undisturbed for millions of years. The echoes from her footsteps quieted as she found herself half-consciously stepping lighter, as if out of respect for the dead that weren't.
Certainly, anyone inside one of those columns might have lasted a million years, if anyone had time to test them and what little power they required held. This was the heart of the base, the most secure and stable room in an entire building meant to withstand a volcanic eruption.
All in all, Arleen thought as she strode past the columns, it was a damn stupid thing to leave the door open.
Which meant someone had opened it, and someone sure wasn't anyone here.
"So what now?" she said, flashing her light around but seeing only columns. Her voice echoed harder, coming back in waves: what now, what now, what now, what nowwww... "Obvious thing to say is 'we save them', but I don't know how we're meant to if we can't find a proper connection to the computer." She thought back to the piece of paper that was the world, hidden safely away in her bag. If there was anywhere left where she could modify a personality script, it would be the isolated emergency controls here. Would they even work, or would they be locked like all the others?
Blue crouched down on the floor. "I don't know," she said, her voice low. "Should be a manual terminal somewhere...wait." She paused, entirely still. Though Arleen could only make out her form and outline, she imagined, for a second, she could see her flatten her ears.
She felt the hums and clicks before she heard them, saw only the brief flashes of black against her light. And before she felt or heard a thing, the voice was inside her.
Kendrick.
“Yeah. That's me.”
Arleen stood still as the black, nebulous form descended before her, so close that the dim blue light reflected from thousands upon thousands of tiny bodies. A brain, she thought, just like she'd described them before. A brain of many. With a backdoor, maybe?
Arleen stepped backwards and jumped as she felt something soft brush up against her leg, gasping for breath before realising it was Blue. She stood in a crouch, eyes so wide they were practically black, and from deep in her throat came a low wrrroowwwwlll... Arleen steadied herself, watching the swarm hover.
You have got a backdoor, Arleen thought, as she tried to steady herself, tried to ignore the thumping in her chest as it reverberated through her body.
She thought back to how they'd got in here.
Wait.
Yeah. Now it all made sense.
Kendrick.
"Yeah?"
I am so sorry.
"I know. Thanks for the doors."
And then her mind exploded.
-
The rush of a mindlink gone too deep pounded in Arleen's skull as her thoughts tried to move like a computer — the base, even locked down, felt so alive like this, countless things to be monitored screaming data at her as if internal organs demanded to speak of every heartbeat and chemical process. Yet it was machine, and ignoring so many things vital to keeping her flesh alive. Sam, the still-human bit of her remembered, had nearly died doing this, climbing into her ship's mind when Gregg had collapsed in the middle of an attack. But the mind that gripped hers, while so much more powerful than the ship's, wasn't hungry...
...this was what Blue described, and this is what the swarm might have felt. The base's mind left her with that little core of inner self remaining, and she could feel it and watch as the rest of the world told it what was going on. Another shift, and she felt enough of it recede to remember she was Arleen Kendrick, to see and feel herself moving. It was disconnected, still, as though someone were telling her a story, like she was the subject of the interactive novels so popular when she was a child.
Here is the light, where you dropped it as you forgot how to stand. That's okay, you remember now, and you're holding it again. There, in front of you, is Blue, and she's struggling while the swarm holds her back, thousands of them clinging to her coat and pulling her away. They're saying something, but it can't be anything important because you can't make it out.
Now you've got your bag and you're running and gasping as you do, because you're not the best runner in the world and Blue's certainly going to run you down once she gets away from the swarm. But that's okay, because you just got to the last set of doors.
Incidentally, here's how to open them. Do you?
Yes.
Do you understand now?, the story asks you, and your innermost self rages for a moment. This is how to act when you're in charge of a base full of people relying on you to save them from danger? Make the danger to save them?
There is something here that's dangerous! Can't you see it?
And you do. Arleen does. And she does something about it.
-
Blue pulled away, the swarm detaching and reforming around her. She hissed and spat and pulled away again. Arleen was gone, and with her the light—only a faint blue form in the distance, wavering between the columns, gave her away. The hidden swarm pulled at her coat and she yowled at the pain, but still she pulled away.
I don't think you understand.
"Then tell me!"
This isn't simple. It might not even be safe. This is... I can't tell for sure. I'm only becoming me again now. I still don't know who me is.
Blue relaxed. The swarm, sensing this, let go and drifted away.
"I think I would say fuck that," she said, and ran off after the fading light.
She skittered through the columns, nearly running into a few in her hurry. She could hear Arleen's footsteps in the distance. Blue kept her ears perked forward, listening for anything else that came her way.
And then she heard another door open ahead of her, and the world became light — harsh, blazing, and white. She paused and blinked, shaking her head in the onslaught, and heard the swarm draw up beside her. Rubbing her eyes with a paw, she walked on, unsure of what she would see, and entered the emergency control room.
Arleen was ahead of her, seated at a bank of machines with her back to the door. She didn't react as Blue walked in, nor did she as the swarm followed. Blue could hear her typing, and see her shoulders move along with her hands, but there was nothing more.
"Blue," she said, eventually, "that is you, isn't it?"
"Yes," Blue said. She crouched low to the floor, her coat fluffed up again. As it always was, she thought...
"And... you?"
If you mean me, yes.
"Good. Come in proper." Arleen's voice was as flat as she was unmoving, and her speech unnaturally calm. "Blue, I need you to do something for me. Get the script."
Were she Arleen, Blue felt, she'd be thinking right now about how things "should" go according to those movies. Arleen would be a monster, or mind-controlled, or something, and out to strangle her with the keyboard wires. But she was Blue, and although her skin tingled and her ears lay flat, she stepped forward, because all Blue cared about now was what was in front of her. What might be could go and get lost.
"And you, go outside and wait."
I am sorry that—
"No. What I mean is—" and here her voice cracked, sounding more like her again, "—you're the best of us at talking. And very soon, if all this goes right and I damn well hope it does, there's going to be a lot of people out there waking up and wanting some answers. Try and give them good ones."
Blue felt no words, but she did sense some feeling of acknowledgment from the swarm as they drifted back out of the door. A few individuals brushed against her coat, and she watched them go, back out into the darkness. What was done there, she supposed, was done. All that mattered was now. So she walked over to where the bag lay and rummaged through it until her paws felt the smooth, crackling paper, and pulled it outside. She sniffed at it, and then saw what was in the middle, in a hand other than her own.
"How did you know?" She looked up at Arleen, who sat beside her. From this angle Blue could see her typing away, faster than she'd ever seen a human's hands move, and Arleen barely slowed down to speak.
"Not how did I know!" Arleen said, never even looking down so much as seeming to remember the paper thanks to its prescence. "More like how didn't I know earlier! This isn't the system I'm used to working with on the ship. That one's... older, and it knows the world, and you can put a good firm hand on it. But this one? Imagine this. Imagine you've been put in a dangerous place, and told you have to protect everyone around you. But you're young, and you don't know what's dangerous yet and what's not, and one day these people show up and they start poking around inside your mind every time you get scared. Now what would you think? It's not trying to hurt anyone, Blue! It's just scared! It's scared of us!"
Arleen took a deep breath and said no more, turning all her attention to the screen and keyboard. Blue watched her for a while, but it became clear she wasn't going to talk further. She looked down at the script Arleen had finished, with the last, missing element now filled in at the centre, the one everything else spiraled out from.
"Nobody told me I'd be doing this," she said. But, paper held in her paws, she climbed up onto the nearest seat and, taking only a few seconds to adjust the ridiculously tiny screen, began to type. And, as she did, she reached out to the system with more than just words on a screen. She remembered what she'd felt in the hot store room, how the system had slipped into her mind and opened up holes she never knew were there. Maybe it had been trying to tell her then. Had it been trying to tell the swarm, too?
Was this why its actions made no sense? So it was like a cornered kitten, swatting at whatever came near...
She reached out again, but this time in the other direction, letting her mind mesh with the system. Ridiculous. I don't know how to be calming. What do I do? Just tell it I'm here?
She thought of how she'd nudged against Arleen in the dark. She thought of how the swarm had landed upon her and crawled over her paws when she'd talked about going out into the hot, wet rainforest. Sentimental crap like that, the sort mothers told their kittens.
The thing about bird systems was that they weren't plain computers. Sometimes you told them what to do, and sometimes, like now, you had to ask nicely. You could force your way with machines, but not with people.
And people might be small and fluffy like herself, they might be humans, they might be swarms. And, ever so often, people might be computers.
-
Arleen could already hear the argument as she got back to the ship and stood outside the last door. Little snatches of conversation - “..said she'd be here by now!” “Have you tried walking through that forest?” “Yes, that's why I'm in here now...” Arleen looked down at her colleagues and shrugged, just as, from the inside, she heard “...well, if she isn't going to get back in time, maybe we could...”
“ Right, that's it,” she said, and knocked again. This got the desired result – after some scrambling around on the other side, the door opened to reveal Sam. "Ugh," Arleen said. "You owe me another bottle of water. One you haven't written on."
“You owe me timing!” said Sam. “I want to be off this planet, the ship's getting all-”
“Yeah, well,” Arleen said, stepping past him into the dim interior, all piled with boxes and crates of who-knew-what, “now I know what you mean when you talk about it giving you a hangover.” She recalled the intensity, the power, the overload... and she'd decided, long before now, to leave Sam and Gregg to it. They could have it all.
The swarm hung back, but Blue bounded forward and sniffed at a nearby box. "Sff!" she said. "Smells a bit like-"
"Okay, what's going on here?" Gregg said, as he made his way from where he'd been lurking inside. "Especially the part about hangovers.”
"Come on now," said Arleen. "This place is as empty as ever. I'm sure we can find room." She looked back at the still hesitant swarm. "So then," she said, "are we still heading somewhere with a library?"
I don't know. Maybe we could go somewhere where things happen? The swarm drifted in from the doorway as it closed, and a few individuals settled on Sam's hand. You are Sam? Kendrick has spoken a lot about you.
"Oh, I bet she has," Sam said, looking up and giving Arleen a smile.
She ignored him and turned to Gregg. "The other one's Gregg, and she must have told you about him."
Yes. But both of them were now watching Arleen and Gregg talk, and Blue drew up closer to watch, too.
"Fine," Gregg said. "I'll find them something around here to do."
"There was something else, wasn't there?" said Arleen. "Oh, now I remember. Before we leave, I owe you a cake."
pointytilly)Character(s)/Pairing(s): original characters, no pairing
Wordcount | Rating: 15588, R for some swearing, though aside from that and the aforementioned warnings, should be reasonably safe
Content Notes/Warnings: mild medical issues re: overheating/heatstroke, partial temporary possession
Summary: Arleen Kendrick is grounded. More accurately, her ship's grounded, and the repairs aren't enough to keep a bored programmer from wandering. Wander she does—straight into a project with a paranoid computer.
Acknowledgments: My thanks go to:
pointytilly, for letting me use their world and characters, being so patient with my constant "ahh these aren't mine I'm going to screw them up moments" and helping me edit my scrawlings into a coherent story.bliumchik, for the fantastic mix, great art, and kind words.pointytilly owns the setting the characters of Arleen, Sam, and Gregg, and Blue and the swarm's species. Blue and the swarm themselves are mine.Listen to the mix here!
- Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 -
The swarm's motions became more frenzied, as though every last one of them wanted a look inside. Arleen waited for a reply, but they were entirely engrossed in the task, their mind stretched thin. She knocked on the door again, but there was nothing else.
And then there was a click.
deactivated. loose. distinct... very... poor design. The swarm slowly pulled away, their bodies all streaming through the cracks and holes like water from a funnel. Arleen stepped back as the door swung open with a clang. Hot air rushed out, enveloping her in a blast.
"Blue?" Without another word, she ran inside, fanning herself from the heavy air. Blue lay motionless on the floor, sprawled out over the metal. Arleen felt a tingling jolt shoot through her body as she crouched down beside her. "Blue, are you there?" Arleen lifted Blue in her arms — even her body felt heavier than it should, and Arleen carried her out leaning backwards under her weight, setting her down on the floor outside.
"You," she said, looking back at the swarm. "Go back to the control room. I left my bag, there's some spare water in there. I need it."
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the swarm drift off in wordless obedience as she bent over the still motionless Blue. Pulling back her lips, exposing too-pink gums, she felt her damp yet welcome breath.
She waved a hand in the air, feeling for the feeble yet still cooler vent drafts, and pulled Blue into a better spot.
Blue twitched, her eyes flickering open for a second. She let out a low "mrrroo" of protest, one paw swiping lazily at nothing.
"Yeah," Arleen said, "Don't talk to me about work either." Hearing a low buzz behind her, she looked to see the swarm return, their bodies wrapped around a partially-drunk water bottle. Arleen took it from them, feeling individual bodies tickle her fingers as they retreated, and unscrewed the top. It was warm, she felt, warm and likely nasty now. Nevertheless, she cupped one hand and poured it in, sprinkling it over Blue's face and paws where her coat was thin. "Come on, you, it's not so bad out here." She poured more water over Blue's body, until she twitched in response, eyes flickering again.
"Fsss...stop it!" Blue swiped again, but this time a claw reached Arleen's hand, catching in her skin and leaving a shallow scratch. Arleen hissed herself in surprise, but ignored the blood as Blue pushed herself upright, her body half-draped over the floor.
"I'd like to say I told you not to wander off," said Arleen, "but I didn't."
Blue shook her paws out and tested her weight. The swarm descended on her, little black bodies clinging to her hairs. She cast a glance at the open door, swinging loosely on its hinges. "Is it fully deactivated?"
There was only an isolated lock.
"I think I need to check something," Blue said. She padded off toward the door, and a few of the swarm clung to her coat before breaking away, reluctantly rejoining the group.
"You good?" Arleen said, turning her attention to them.
I believe a few of me were lost inside the mechanism.
"Oh, is that—"
It should not be a problem. What there is left will mate.
"Ah. Good on you, then."
But the swarm didn't stay by to listen to her, instead drifting back toward the door. Arleen followed, bracing in the face of all the hot, heavy air that had yet to dissipate.
"Blue, what are you doing?"
"You should know." Blue sat hunched over the floor, one paw tracing circles across the smooth surface. Arleen knelt beside her to see, the swarm hovering behind them. On the floor lay claw-marked grooves — not the random scratchings of a frightened creature, but something with purpose and direction.
Arleen didn't know the script — it looped and spun in multiple directions and flowing curves, but she knew the pattern. As Blue traced it, she saw it on the highest level: a series of circles, all spiraling into one another in a complex dance of symbols, until they all met like water flowing down a drain. At the very centre lay an empty circle, and it was here that Blue's paw rested.
"It's a personality script," Arleen said.
"One I might have finished if you hadn't gotten me out in time," Blue said.
Was that Blue admitting that she couldn't solve the puzzle? Arleen leant over to get a closer look at the unknown variable. "I'd like to give that a try." But down here, she knew, it was a worthless pile of symbols. The computers outside the control room wouldn't allow them such deep access, and the control room was still frozen.
The swarm descended upon the design, unperturbed by the heat. You could not have calculated this alone.
"I'm not sure I was alone." Blue raised her paw and shook it as though it were covered in something nasty, and backed off from the pattern. "Stupid, isn't it? You can't even use it down here!" She twitched and flattened her ears, turning away. "I need some cold air."
"Me too," Arleen said, giving the patterns one last look. She stepped out into the corridor, taking a few deep breaths of vent air. So what did all this mean? They needed access to the very core to work with something like that. "So you have an interface too. That's not so unusual, then."
"Yes, but I never liked it," admitted Blue. "Don't like having... things in my head like that. Not when they barge in!"
"It wanted to tell you something?" Arleen shifted from one foot to the other.
There was a click, and Arleen whirled around to see — just in time to see the lights on the furthest door, locked and forgotton, switch colours. It swung open, loose and unguided, the sound echoing through the passage, and before it hovered the swarm, nearly lost in the darkness.
That is correct.
Blue stepped forward, but Arleen held up a hand. "Wait a moment," she said. "Blue? Do me a favour. Back in the control room, get my bag for me, yeah?"
Another muscular twitch ran over Blue's shoulders, causing her fur to ripple. She turned and left, though her ears were turned backwards, listening out for anything that might be going on behind her. Arleen watched her go, but quickly turned her attention back to the swarm.
"Right then," she said. She crouched down, more to alleviate the sudden unsteadiness in her legs than anything else, and looked up at the creature floating in the doorway. "So it has something to say to us. Nice. I don't suppose it could turn the lights on, could it?"
The swarm floated downwards, hovering in front of Arleen's face. Sorry. Is something wrong?
You bet there is. "I've been able to feel this system's interface since I came here, but it's been less co-operative than the manual inputs. And you..." She looked closer at the swarm, so close she could just about see its individuals right in front of her eyes, so close they fluttered in the wake of her breath. "You don't have one, do you?"
No. Where would I put it?
"Quite. I mean, Blue and myself, we've got brains. But you... you don't so much have a brain as you are a brain. You haven't got anything for an interface to go inside. You ever been able to link before?"
Of course. I don't need an interface. Though the swarm's mental tone remained as level as ever, Arleen thought she could detect a note of pride in there.
"I have to wonder which one of us this machine's having an easier time getting through to, then."
Do you mean— the swarm began, but they never finished, and even if they had, Arleen wouldn't have listened. Blue was returning, dragging the bag behind her with the strap in her teeth.
"This is way too heavy," she said, spitting it out.
"I'm sorry." Arleen said, hefting up the bag and rummaging around inside. "Here," she said again, pulling out a pen and half-crumpled sheets of paper. "Sorry, can you do me another favour? Copy down that chart on you did in something we can all read."
"Blue, do everything..." Blue said, but she gladly accepted them. "Next it'll be Blue, save my life. I'm looking forward to that one." Her ears perked forward, her eyes wide, and Arleen felt it was the cat equivalent of a smile.
"Now then," she said, slinging the bag over her back (it was heavy, but like hell she was going in there without it), "once she gets back, how about we take a look in there?"
The swarm floated back toward the door, curiously extending parts of itself inside. Do you need light?
"Seems if we want light," Arleen said, "we're going to have to find a light switch. Seems to me you can find it, too."
That is correct.
"Yeah," Arleen said. Funny, isn't it? That's what you said before.
-
If she listened hard enough, she could hear it: a faint, rapid clicking on the very edge of hearing. The swarm clung to her shirt, tugging and guiding her through the darkness. Each step she took was careful and deliberate, making sure nothing was underfoot. Occasionally she felt Blue's warm, fluffy form brush against her legs. She too stuck close, unable to see a thing in the all pervading dark.
There are stairs up ahead. The swarm tugged harder, and Arleen tried to follow. Sure enough, as she stepped forward, she felt the first block underfoot, and another, and another. She reached out and felt a cool, metal wall with her hand, leaning on it to steady herself a little. Behind her she could hear a series of little thumps as Blue took each step one leap at a time, the sound of her impact echoing through the air, each one returning over and over until the clicks became drowned out by the endless whumph, whumph, whumph.
"Teach me to talk about light switches," Arleen said.
I have not yet been able to find one that works.
Arleen felt the air shift slightly in front of her face as the swarm swirled around. "This better be the way to the stores," she said.
So far it is. However I suspect that there will be more to it than that. Have you considered why the door opened at all?
"I couldn't not have."
Then I think — wait. I might have something.
The lights stuttered on, illuminating the dull metal stairway. For just a second, Blue's eyes flashed gold and green, and the swarm hovered by Arleen's face — and then it died away, fading to blackness before Arleen's eyes had a chance to adjust. It flickered again, weakly this time, and then faded into nothing. Arleen tested her footing on the stairs, feeling the drop behind her. Just an ordinary step, she told herself, not something she'd fall down... "So you did find that light switch."
Indeed.
She stayed still. They could see her. The blackness didn't matter. "And you were going to tell me how the door opened."
I know how it opened.
"You do, do you?"
Yes. Because I opened it.
Arleen heard a terrible hiss as the lights flashed back on, and in that second she saw Blue, yellow eyes gleaming, coat raised into spikes, claws extended. She saw Blue tense her muscles, and leap...
"No!" The lights died away again, and she was left blinking away the bright spots in the back of her eyes. That was when she felt the air part, felt the swarm's multitude skim past her face as they dodged Blue's leap. Blue collided head on with her, a heavy weight right in her chest, and she stumbled backwards, reaching out into black nothingness...
..and snatched a rail in her hand, steadying herself and backing away from the invisible scene. She gripped the rail tight, though her hands were slippery with sweat, and listened out for any sign of Blue. Don't bother trying to hide, she told herself. There isn't any point. They know you're there.
"Weren't joking when I said you didn't need an interface." She gazed up, at nothing. It just felt like the right thing to do.
Behind her, she heard the faintest of sounds before Blue nudged her hand with her forehead, a gentle I-am-here gesture. She reached backwards with her free hand and touched Blue on the shoulder, her fingers sinking into the thick fur. Beneath her hand she could feel the steady, rapid vibration of Blue's heartbeat, so intense it shook through her entire body.
"I wouldn't try that again," Arleen said. It was all she could think of to say.
"So my aim needs work." Arleen felt the usual dismissive ripple run through Blue's coat as she spoke, but Blue simply nudged her again.
Above their heads, she sensed the clicks as the swarm drifted onward, watching without eyes.
-
Arleen knew paper as something that was just...there. It was something to scribble down notes on, then recycle with the rest of the ship's trash when they lost meaning. It wasn't something that really mattered, something that tied her world together. Paper was just a thing.
But when her hand closed upon Blue's script in her bag, it became the world — dry and crackly, useless in the dark, yet probably the most valuable thing she owned.
There were other things in there too. There was the water bottle, nearly gone. Arleen considered finishing it, but deep inside she thought no, save it. Whatever it was inside her that said that, she didn't want to become well acquainted. So she focused on what was there: the bag, full of mostly junk, Blue's warm body pressed close to her, a whole world of touch and irrelevant things that were suddenly very, very important.
It was easier, anyway, to think that a bit of paper was more important than a bottle of water. Still ludicrous, but a little more normal, and a little less... close to the deep part of her that the dark thoughts came from.
That was when her hand closed over something she didn't expect. “Wait!” she said. “I thought I left this on my bed!” She pulled out the phone and flipped it open.
The little screen flashed into life. A cold light spilled over her hands and lent a shadowy outline to Blue's nearby figure, ears and fluff and whiskers and gleaming, yellow eyes.
"No signal," she said. She tried to hide the disappointment in her voice, but Blue gave her another nudge that spoke as clearly as telepathy. I know, sucks, doesn't it?
Of course there'd be no signal. It had been bad enough without the lockdown, when she'd been in her quarters nearer the outdoors. But she'd been hoping, in the way of children and the extremely uncynical, that if she didn't think about it failing it might well not.
And it was better than idly wondering if swarms ate corpses if nothing else was around.
"Light," said Blue. "Nice. Maybe we can go somewhere now?"
Arleen looked over at her. In the darkness it was near impossible to make out her expression, but she had that perked-ear look again. "It's not much." She and Blue stood in a little circle of light, and when she moved the commlink around it did little more than lend a few hazy outlines to the darkness.
But it was enough... for a cat.
"You're blind," Blue said. "Don't worry. It's not your fault. Hold that thing still, will you?"
Arleen stopped, vaguely self-conscious. She'd been trying to see, flashing the light into every little corner.
Light steadied, Blue didn't wait for her. She got to her feet and set off, and Arleen slung her bag back over her shoulder and followed, still holding the light. As her eyes adjusted, she could see a little better what was around her, the ghostly outlines of piping and wires close by, half seen in the shadows. She kept a firm grip and tried not to think about how long it had been since she'd last put any charge in the thing. Past the outline of Blue's fur, she could make out another staircase...
Blue took the steps in her usual several at a time leaps, not caring about being quiet even as they neared their destination. No sense in worrying about sound giving them away, Arleen thought, or about the light. The swarm knew where they were. So did the system. Arleen wondered what it must be like, to be able to feel things walking through yourself. And she thought of Blue, and the way she'd hissed and flattened her ears when she thought of the system being inside her head.
"I've never been up here," Blue said. "Keep shining that ahead. And I don't know how I'm going to open the door up top, but just keep shining it."
Good idea, Arleen felt. Just shine the damn light and keep walking, at least you can get somewhere that way. Blue leapt onwards until she was a dim, round shape that Arleen could barely see until she moved. When she stopped, she melted back into the darkness.
When Arleen caught up with her enough to resolve her figure again, Blue sat crouched down, staring right ahead. Arleen could only make out a doorframe — beyond that, darkness that even Blue couldn't see through. It swallowed up her feeble light, leaving them with the stairs behind and the unknown ahead.
"Shit," she said, to nobody in particular.
"So," Blue said, "you'd say this was bad, then? I can't decide."
The doorframe opened out into nothing but blackness—blackness through which the swarm must already have passed.
-
I-that-is sped through the nothingness.
Outside of them the world was one of motion and steel. They hovered and danced through the air, an invisible black cloud in the dark. And they stayed in a thick, bunched form, the outside seeing with clicks and motion. The inside saw nothing. Inside they were a mess of layers, some of them overlapping and mingling, all full of codes and panic. Tiny individuals buzzed and swam through the sea of selves, each one never knowing the full extent.
There wasn't one to know. The layers formed a chaotic mess inside. I-that-is was not. And the core, the innermost self, knew only one thing. There was another door coming up.
They landed on it. The core felt dimly aware of some code in the upper levels, of the outer selves working away at the lock. There was something important about doors. Something that they'd remembered for the last one too. And if there were only enough of them to know more, they'd remember.
But what was it?
Anyone able to see, in some shape or form, in the near-complete darkness, would have seen the door slide open and the dark cloud pass through—if they looked closely.
If they looked really closely, they might have been able to see a few trailing individuals nudge it ajar while the rest passed.
-
Arleen tilted the light toward the open doorway, and the edges shone, a gleaming outline against the black. "I think — hey! Where are you going?"
Blue didn't wait for her. She bounded through, heedless of the danger. "Stop waving that light around! Come in! You should see this."
"By 'this', do you mean something that's going to devour us all horribly?"
"Don't think so," Blue said. "I don't think any of these would do that even if they could."
So Arleen stepped through.
The first thing she was aware of was a sense of vastness — not like the passages outside and the narrow, metal stairwell. She could make out a plain ceiling, if she shone her light directly upwards, but if she shone outwards, there was no telling where the far wall lay. She didn't need a light for that, though: the way her footsteps echoed and the very air itself told her that this was somewhere big.
And if a room was big out here, someone must have had a damn good reason to make it so.
The reason became clear when she saw what Blue had. Rows and rows of columns, standing like some army of giant building blocks, ghostly and faint. She could make out no markings or signs beyong the faint glow of running medical electronics, but she didn't need to. Her hazy blue light told her all she needed to know. This was where everyone lay, vital signs suspended and waiting for rescue.
It could not have been more than a couple of hours since the base had been a whirlwind of light and sound and movement, yet now it was as though she were peeking into some ancient tomb, one laid undisturbed for millions of years. The echoes from her footsteps quieted as she found herself half-consciously stepping lighter, as if out of respect for the dead that weren't.
Certainly, anyone inside one of those columns might have lasted a million years, if anyone had time to test them and what little power they required held. This was the heart of the base, the most secure and stable room in an entire building meant to withstand a volcanic eruption.
All in all, Arleen thought as she strode past the columns, it was a damn stupid thing to leave the door open.
Which meant someone had opened it, and someone sure wasn't anyone here.
"So what now?" she said, flashing her light around but seeing only columns. Her voice echoed harder, coming back in waves: what now, what now, what now, what nowwww... "Obvious thing to say is 'we save them', but I don't know how we're meant to if we can't find a proper connection to the computer." She thought back to the piece of paper that was the world, hidden safely away in her bag. If there was anywhere left where she could modify a personality script, it would be the isolated emergency controls here. Would they even work, or would they be locked like all the others?
Blue crouched down on the floor. "I don't know," she said, her voice low. "Should be a manual terminal somewhere...wait." She paused, entirely still. Though Arleen could only make out her form and outline, she imagined, for a second, she could see her flatten her ears.
She felt the hums and clicks before she heard them, saw only the brief flashes of black against her light. And before she felt or heard a thing, the voice was inside her.
Kendrick.
“Yeah. That's me.”
Arleen stood still as the black, nebulous form descended before her, so close that the dim blue light reflected from thousands upon thousands of tiny bodies. A brain, she thought, just like she'd described them before. A brain of many. With a backdoor, maybe?
Arleen stepped backwards and jumped as she felt something soft brush up against her leg, gasping for breath before realising it was Blue. She stood in a crouch, eyes so wide they were practically black, and from deep in her throat came a low wrrroowwwwlll... Arleen steadied herself, watching the swarm hover.
You have got a backdoor, Arleen thought, as she tried to steady herself, tried to ignore the thumping in her chest as it reverberated through her body.
She thought back to how they'd got in here.
Wait.
Yeah. Now it all made sense.
Kendrick.
"Yeah?"
I am so sorry.
"I know. Thanks for the doors."
And then her mind exploded.
-
The rush of a mindlink gone too deep pounded in Arleen's skull as her thoughts tried to move like a computer — the base, even locked down, felt so alive like this, countless things to be monitored screaming data at her as if internal organs demanded to speak of every heartbeat and chemical process. Yet it was machine, and ignoring so many things vital to keeping her flesh alive. Sam, the still-human bit of her remembered, had nearly died doing this, climbing into her ship's mind when Gregg had collapsed in the middle of an attack. But the mind that gripped hers, while so much more powerful than the ship's, wasn't hungry...
...this was what Blue described, and this is what the swarm might have felt. The base's mind left her with that little core of inner self remaining, and she could feel it and watch as the rest of the world told it what was going on. Another shift, and she felt enough of it recede to remember she was Arleen Kendrick, to see and feel herself moving. It was disconnected, still, as though someone were telling her a story, like she was the subject of the interactive novels so popular when she was a child.
Here is the light, where you dropped it as you forgot how to stand. That's okay, you remember now, and you're holding it again. There, in front of you, is Blue, and she's struggling while the swarm holds her back, thousands of them clinging to her coat and pulling her away. They're saying something, but it can't be anything important because you can't make it out.
Now you've got your bag and you're running and gasping as you do, because you're not the best runner in the world and Blue's certainly going to run you down once she gets away from the swarm. But that's okay, because you just got to the last set of doors.
Incidentally, here's how to open them. Do you?
Yes.
Do you understand now?, the story asks you, and your innermost self rages for a moment. This is how to act when you're in charge of a base full of people relying on you to save them from danger? Make the danger to save them?
There is something here that's dangerous! Can't you see it?
And you do. Arleen does. And she does something about it.
-
Blue pulled away, the swarm detaching and reforming around her. She hissed and spat and pulled away again. Arleen was gone, and with her the light—only a faint blue form in the distance, wavering between the columns, gave her away. The hidden swarm pulled at her coat and she yowled at the pain, but still she pulled away.
I don't think you understand.
"Then tell me!"
This isn't simple. It might not even be safe. This is... I can't tell for sure. I'm only becoming me again now. I still don't know who me is.
Blue relaxed. The swarm, sensing this, let go and drifted away.
"I think I would say fuck that," she said, and ran off after the fading light.
She skittered through the columns, nearly running into a few in her hurry. She could hear Arleen's footsteps in the distance. Blue kept her ears perked forward, listening for anything else that came her way.
And then she heard another door open ahead of her, and the world became light — harsh, blazing, and white. She paused and blinked, shaking her head in the onslaught, and heard the swarm draw up beside her. Rubbing her eyes with a paw, she walked on, unsure of what she would see, and entered the emergency control room.
Arleen was ahead of her, seated at a bank of machines with her back to the door. She didn't react as Blue walked in, nor did she as the swarm followed. Blue could hear her typing, and see her shoulders move along with her hands, but there was nothing more.
"Blue," she said, eventually, "that is you, isn't it?"
"Yes," Blue said. She crouched low to the floor, her coat fluffed up again. As it always was, she thought...
"And... you?"
If you mean me, yes.
"Good. Come in proper." Arleen's voice was as flat as she was unmoving, and her speech unnaturally calm. "Blue, I need you to do something for me. Get the script."
Were she Arleen, Blue felt, she'd be thinking right now about how things "should" go according to those movies. Arleen would be a monster, or mind-controlled, or something, and out to strangle her with the keyboard wires. But she was Blue, and although her skin tingled and her ears lay flat, she stepped forward, because all Blue cared about now was what was in front of her. What might be could go and get lost.
"And you, go outside and wait."
I am sorry that—
"No. What I mean is—" and here her voice cracked, sounding more like her again, "—you're the best of us at talking. And very soon, if all this goes right and I damn well hope it does, there's going to be a lot of people out there waking up and wanting some answers. Try and give them good ones."
Blue felt no words, but she did sense some feeling of acknowledgment from the swarm as they drifted back out of the door. A few individuals brushed against her coat, and she watched them go, back out into the darkness. What was done there, she supposed, was done. All that mattered was now. So she walked over to where the bag lay and rummaged through it until her paws felt the smooth, crackling paper, and pulled it outside. She sniffed at it, and then saw what was in the middle, in a hand other than her own.
"How did you know?" She looked up at Arleen, who sat beside her. From this angle Blue could see her typing away, faster than she'd ever seen a human's hands move, and Arleen barely slowed down to speak.
"Not how did I know!" Arleen said, never even looking down so much as seeming to remember the paper thanks to its prescence. "More like how didn't I know earlier! This isn't the system I'm used to working with on the ship. That one's... older, and it knows the world, and you can put a good firm hand on it. But this one? Imagine this. Imagine you've been put in a dangerous place, and told you have to protect everyone around you. But you're young, and you don't know what's dangerous yet and what's not, and one day these people show up and they start poking around inside your mind every time you get scared. Now what would you think? It's not trying to hurt anyone, Blue! It's just scared! It's scared of us!"
Arleen took a deep breath and said no more, turning all her attention to the screen and keyboard. Blue watched her for a while, but it became clear she wasn't going to talk further. She looked down at the script Arleen had finished, with the last, missing element now filled in at the centre, the one everything else spiraled out from.
"Nobody told me I'd be doing this," she said. But, paper held in her paws, she climbed up onto the nearest seat and, taking only a few seconds to adjust the ridiculously tiny screen, began to type. And, as she did, she reached out to the system with more than just words on a screen. She remembered what she'd felt in the hot store room, how the system had slipped into her mind and opened up holes she never knew were there. Maybe it had been trying to tell her then. Had it been trying to tell the swarm, too?
Was this why its actions made no sense? So it was like a cornered kitten, swatting at whatever came near...
She reached out again, but this time in the other direction, letting her mind mesh with the system. Ridiculous. I don't know how to be calming. What do I do? Just tell it I'm here?
She thought of how she'd nudged against Arleen in the dark. She thought of how the swarm had landed upon her and crawled over her paws when she'd talked about going out into the hot, wet rainforest. Sentimental crap like that, the sort mothers told their kittens.
The thing about bird systems was that they weren't plain computers. Sometimes you told them what to do, and sometimes, like now, you had to ask nicely. You could force your way with machines, but not with people.
And people might be small and fluffy like herself, they might be humans, they might be swarms. And, ever so often, people might be computers.
-
Arleen could already hear the argument as she got back to the ship and stood outside the last door. Little snatches of conversation - “..said she'd be here by now!” “Have you tried walking through that forest?” “Yes, that's why I'm in here now...” Arleen looked down at her colleagues and shrugged, just as, from the inside, she heard “...well, if she isn't going to get back in time, maybe we could...”
“ Right, that's it,” she said, and knocked again. This got the desired result – after some scrambling around on the other side, the door opened to reveal Sam. "Ugh," Arleen said. "You owe me another bottle of water. One you haven't written on."
“You owe me timing!” said Sam. “I want to be off this planet, the ship's getting all-”
“Yeah, well,” Arleen said, stepping past him into the dim interior, all piled with boxes and crates of who-knew-what, “now I know what you mean when you talk about it giving you a hangover.” She recalled the intensity, the power, the overload... and she'd decided, long before now, to leave Sam and Gregg to it. They could have it all.
The swarm hung back, but Blue bounded forward and sniffed at a nearby box. "Sff!" she said. "Smells a bit like-"
"Okay, what's going on here?" Gregg said, as he made his way from where he'd been lurking inside. "Especially the part about hangovers.”
"Come on now," said Arleen. "This place is as empty as ever. I'm sure we can find room." She looked back at the still hesitant swarm. "So then," she said, "are we still heading somewhere with a library?"
I don't know. Maybe we could go somewhere where things happen? The swarm drifted in from the doorway as it closed, and a few individuals settled on Sam's hand. You are Sam? Kendrick has spoken a lot about you.
"Oh, I bet she has," Sam said, looking up and giving Arleen a smile.
She ignored him and turned to Gregg. "The other one's Gregg, and she must have told you about him."
Yes. But both of them were now watching Arleen and Gregg talk, and Blue drew up closer to watch, too.
"Fine," Gregg said. "I'll find them something around here to do."
"There was something else, wasn't there?" said Arleen. "Oh, now I remember. Before we leave, I owe you a cake."